Hindu woman and her family driven to suicide after harassment and pressure to convert to Islam by Muslim man in Andhra Pradesh
Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, India 
15 August, 2026
Case Summary
In Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, a Hindu woman named Sowjanya and two members of her family were driven to suicide after they were subjected to sustained harassment and pressure to convert to Islam by a Muslim man. The accused was identified as Sheikh Sadhik Khan, a Muslim rifle-shooting coach. Khan had known the family for nearly two years and had initially become acquainted with them through his rifle-shooting academy, where Sowjanya’s 10-year-old son, Reyansh Reddy, underwent rifle-shooting training. The incident took place on the intervening night of 16 and 17 August 2026. Thillapudi Nookaraju (61), an Assistant Engineer with the Panchayat Raj Department, his wife Meena (58), their daughter Sowjanya (38), and Sowjanya’s 10-year-old son plunged into the Godavari River from the road-cum-rail bridge in Rajamahendravaram. The minor boy survived, while Nookaraju, Meena and Sowjanya died. Fishermen rescued the child after finding him unconscious, while the bodies of Nookaraju, Meena and Sowjanya were subsequently recovered from the river. Police initially investigated the incident as a family suicide. The course of the investigation changed after police recovered two suicide notes, one written by Nookaraju and another by Sowjanya. Nookaraju’s note was recovered first, following which police registered an abetment-to-suicide case in Rajamahendravaram. Sowjanya’s note was subsequently recovered from a scooter. Both notes named Sheikh Sadhik Khan as the perpetrator. In her suicide note, Sowjanya stated that Sadhik Khan had been harassing, threatening and blackmailing her following the death of her husband, Kowvuri Jagdish Reddy. She stated that Khan had pressured her to convert to Islam. She also revealed that Khan had given Jagdish Reddy a chemical poison or poisonous substance, causing his death. At the time of writing this report, police were investigating whether Khan’s role in Jagdish Reddy’s death was connected to the subsequent deaths of Sowjanya and her parents. Khan’s role in Jagdish Reddy’s death had not been established, and investigators were independently seeking evidence to corroborate Sowjanya’s statements. Nookaraju’s suicide note also named Khan and stated that he had continued to harass the family and had threatened to kill Nookaraju and his grandson after the family rejected Khan’s offers and took their possessions. The family stated that they took the extreme step because they could no longer bear the torment inflicted on their daughter. According to the investigation, Khan had begun visiting the family’s home after Jagdish Reddy’s death in an attempt to become closer to Sowjanya. He had initially become acquainted with the family through his professional shooting academy, where Sowjanya’s son received rifle-shooting training. Khan later joined the school attended by Sowjanya’s son, Reyansh Reddy, as a rifle-shooting coach. Police were examining the nature of his relationship with Sowjanya and her family during the nearly two-year period in which he knew them. Based on the suicide notes and the statement of the surviving 10-year-old child, police registered a case against Khan under 12 sections, including provisions relating to forced religious conversion and abetment of suicide. He was charged with aiding and abetting suicide under Section 108 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. Reports also stated that the case included charges relating to extortion and murder. A separate complaint was filed by Bhaskar Reddy, the father of Sowjanya’s deceased husband, Jagdish Reddy. He stated that Khan had played a role in his son’s death and that Jagdish had been administered a chemical poison. Bhaskar Reddy further stated that he learnt these details after speaking to his grandson, who had been attending Khan’s rifle-shooting academy. Based on his complaint, Sarpavaram Police Station in Kakinada registered a murder case against Khan. Police were independently verifying the statements contained in the suicide notes. Investigators were examining the circumstances surrounding Jagdish Reddy’s death and looking for evidence to corroborate Sowjanya’s statements that Khan had given him poison and had pressured her to convert to Islam. Following the deaths, police formed multiple special teams to trace Khan. Under the supervision of Superintendent of Police Bindu Madhav, six special teams searched for him across Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Another report stated that more than 10 police teams from the Kakinada and East Godavari district police were tracking his movements. Police said Khan moved between different locations and stayed with friends or acquaintances from the shooting fraternity while attempting to evade arrest. He told some of them that he had lost his phone and money. Police also said Khan attempted to avoid detection by not carrying a mobile phone, not using his automated teller machine (ATM) card and avoiding online purchases. Investigators nevertheless traced him using technical evidence and human intelligence. Khan was eventually located in the Nauchandi Police Station area of Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, where he had taken refuge at the home of a friend or acquaintance. Police arrested him and produced him before a magistrate in Meerut. On 22 August 2026, the court granted a transit warrant, following which Khan was brought to Andhra Pradesh. He was subsequently taken to Sarpavaram Police Station and produced before a magistrate’s court in Kakinada, which remanded him to 14 days of judicial custody. East Godavari police stated that they would seek a production warrant to take Khan into custody for further investigation into the deaths of Nookaraju, Meena and Sowjanya. Investigating officers also sought the court’s permission to question him in connection with the cases. Police were expected to seek his custody for further questioning. Superintendent of Police Bindu Madhav praised the Special Investigation Team officers involved in tracing and arresting Khan under the supervision of Additional Superintendent of Police Mahanthi Kishore. The investigation also widened to examine the possible involvement of a driver. Police stated that the driver’s culpability had not been established and that he would be named in the case only if evidence emerged against him. Meanwhile, former Member of Parliament Vijayasai Reddy called for an independent investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation or National Investigation Agency, citing suspicion of a wider conspiracy. He stated that Khan was a member of a 10-person gang involved in extortion, gun supply, religious conversions and anti-national activities. He further stated that the group had targeted around 15 other Hindu families in and around Rajamahendravaram and Kakinada. The investigation centred on the suicide notes left by Sowjanya and Nookaraju, which named Khan and detailed the harassment, threats, blackmail and conversion pressure faced by the family. Police registered charges relating to forced religious conversion, abetment of suicide, murder, extortion and other offences, while investigating the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Nookaraju, Meena, Sowjanya and Jagdish Reddy.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category selected in this case is Predatory Proselytisation. The sub-category selected is: Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats, in this case, find their root in discriminatory grounds, which has the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion, forceful circumcision, etc. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. Such cases, where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion, are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. The other sub-category is: Suicide after pressure to convert. When there is pressure, threat or coercion employed upon the Hindu victim to convert to a different religion, in several cases, owing to the humiliation or pressure/threat, the victim commits suicide. In such cases, the pressure/threat/intimidation/coercion/violence itself is driven by animosity towards the victim’s Hindu faith. The pressure/threat that is employed leads to the Hindu victim taking his own life. Since the victim’s faith is at the heart of the pressure to convert and the ensuing suicide by the victim, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. The other sub-category selected is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, and the tertiary category is: Pattern of targeting Hindus. Religious brainwashing essentially means the often subtle and forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up their religious beliefs to accept contrasting, regimented ideas. Religious grooming or brainwashing also involves propaganda and manipulation. It involves the systematic effort, driven by religious malice and indoctrination, to persuade “non-believers’ to accept allegiance, command, or doctrine to and of a contrasting faith. Cases of such grooming or brainwashing are far more nuanced than direct threats, coercion, inducement and violence. In such cases, it is often seen that there is repeated, subtle and continual manipulation of the victim to induce disaffection towards their own faith and acceptance of the contrasting faith of the perpetrator. While subtle indoctrination is widely acknowledged as predatory, an element which is often understated in such conversions or the attempts of such conversion is the role of loyalty and trust which might develop between the perpetrator and the victim. Fiduciary relationships are often abused to affect such religious conversion. For example, an educator transmitting religious doctrine of a competing faith to a Hindu student. The Hindu student is likely to accept what the teacher is transmitting owing to the existence of the fiduciary relationship. The exploitation of the fiduciary relationship to religiously indoctrinate victims would also be included in this category. Since the underlying animosity towards the victim’s faith forms the basis of predatory proselytisation, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. This case was a clear example of a religiously driven hate crime because an entire Hindu family was driven to suicide after Sowjanya was pressured to convert to Islam and subjected to severe harassment by the Muslim perpetrator, Sheikh Sadhik Khan. The sustained harassment, threats, blackmail and pressure to abandon her Hindu faith demonstrated that the targeting was rooted in her religious identity and the perpetrator’s attempt to forcibly alter it. The religious marker in this case was the fact that the victim was pressured to convert to Islam. When conversion is sought through external persuasion, pressure, force and harassment rather than through free will, personal conviction or genuine belief, it demonstrates hostility towards the victim’s Hindu faith. The attempt to make a Hindu woman abandon her faith against her will treated her religious identity as something that could be overridden or replaced through coercion, rather than respected as a matter of personal belief and conscience. Such forced conversion violated her religious autonomy and her fundamental right to retain her faith and practise it peacefully. It also reflected a mindset in which her Hindu faith was not accepted as an equally legitimate identity but was instead treated as something that needed to be removed. The use of intimidation and coercion to achieve this objective further demonstrated disdain towards Hinduism and made the incident a clear instance of religiously driven hate crime rooted in anti-Hindu animosity. The subsequent acts of harassment, threats, blackmail and overall mental torture inflicted on Sowjanya and her family further intensify the severity of the case. Nookaraju’s suicide note states that Khan threatens to kill Nookaraju and his grandson after the family rejects his offers. The fact that the family faced threats after resisting and rejecting the pressure to convert further demonstrates religious hostility. When a Hindu family opposes an attempt to forcibly alter their faith and is subsequently subjected to threats and intimidation, it demonstrates hostility towards their religious identity and their right to retain their Hindu faith. These acts compound the suffering they experience because of the targeting of their Hindu religious identity and demonstrate an attempt to use fear, coercion and psychological pressure to overcome their resistance to religious conversion. The fact that the family ultimately, along with Sowjanya, committed suicide after she was pressured to convert demonstrates the extreme level of hostility and severity of the harassment they were subjected to in connection with their religious identity and the attempt to forcibly convert her. When victims are driven to suicide as a consequence of sustained religiously motivated harassment and pressure to achieve religious conversion, it demonstrates the severity of the persecution they endured because of their religious identity and the attempt to alter their faith. Such an extreme outcome shows that the harassment and coercion went beyond ordinary intimidation and have caused profound psychological suffering to the victims and their family. The fact that the pressure to abandon the Hindu faith was accompanied by sustained harassment and ultimately contributed to the family taking their own lives further demonstrates deep-seated hostility towards the Hindu faith and identity. This was not an isolated incident. It demonstrated a broader pattern of targeting Hindus for religious conversion, as the perpetrator was involved with a gang that participated in forced religious conversions and had targeted more than 15 Hindu families. The targeting of multiple Hindu families for the same religious objective demonstrates that the conduct was not directed at an individual because of a personal dispute alone, but reflects hostility towards members of the Hindu community and their religious identity. The involvement of a group in such activities further indicates an organised pattern in which Hindu families are specifically targeted for conversion because of their religious identity. This recurring targeting, coupled with the use of coercion and pressure to achieve religious conversion, demonstrates a broader pattern of anti-Hindu hostility and makes the present case an instance of a religiously driven hate crime rather than an isolated personal dispute. Overall, since this case meets the parameters of a hate crime, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker.
Victim Details
Total Victim
4
Deceased
3
Gender
- Male 2
- Female 2
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 4
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 3
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
