Hindu minor girls targeted and lured by Muslim man posed as Hindu, subjected to sexual exploitation and forced prostitution in Dehradun, Uttarakhand

Case ID : 30aa294 | Location : Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 30 August, 2026

Case ID : 30aa294

Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

30 August, 2026

Hindu minor girls targeted and lured by Muslim man posed as Hindu, subjected to sexual exploitation and forced prostitution in Dehradun, Uttarakhand

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Pattern of targeting Hindu women

Case Summary

In Dehradun, Uttarakhand, Hindu girls, including a minor girl belonging to the Dalit community, were targeted and lured by a Muslim man who concealed his religious identity and pretended to be Hindu by using the name “Rahul” and a fake Aadhaar card. He approached girls on social media, befriended them under a false Hindu identity, and presented himself as someone who could arrange employment opportunities. Hindu girls from vulnerable backgrounds were lured with promises of jobs, education and salaries of around ₹15,000 to ₹20,000 and were subsequently brought to hotels, where they were forced into sexual exploitation and prostitution. The matter came to light after Bajrang Dal members reached the hotel near Sai Temple in the Rajpur Road area following information about the racket. They raided a room in the hotel where they caught the accused and his woman associate, who trapped the victims through various allurements and brought them there. The members of the Hindu organisation also rescued some victims from the scene. One of the rescued victims was identified as Sheetal (19). Sheetal told the members of the Hindu organisation that she had been brought away from her home on the pretext of being taken for a trip to Mussoorie. She had come into contact with one woman through one of her friends, and the woman who had brought her to the hotel. This woman was her friend's mother. These girls were subjected to repeated sexual exploitation after being trapped. One of the rescued girls stated that five Muslim men sexually assaulted her one after another, and her ordeal continued until a day before the Bajrand Dal members arrived. She further stated that intoxicating substances were forced upon her. The account indicated that the girls were made to meet multiple men for sexual exploitation and were not even paid, despite the money generated through prostitution. The Bajrang Dal members caught the accused woman red-handed. They checked her mobile phone only to find photographs of multiple other girls, raising concerns about other girls connected to the same network and the manner in which girls were being brought to the hotel. Synthetic intoxicating substances were also found at the location. They rescued the Hindu minor girls. They accused the hotel staff and management of being complicit in allowing girls to be brought to the premises and being sexually exploited. Bajrang Dal members stated that girls from different places were being targeted through social media and other contacts, enticed with employment and financial opportunities, and subsequently pushed into prostitution after reaching the hotel. During the intervention, the Muslim man operating under the false Hindu identity “Rahul” fled from the location. The rescued girls and those caught at the hotel were handed over to the police, while Bajrang Dal members demanded strict action against everyone involved, including the hotel management. The material provided for this case did not disclose the Muslim accused’s actual name or the name of the rescued minor Hindu girl.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category selected for this case is: Crime against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected for this case is: Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary categories selected for this case are: Name changed, pattern of targeting Hindu girls. When a non-Hindu man pretends to be a Hindu to deceive a Hindu woman into a relationship, the act is seen as triggered by mala fide intentions. In some cases, the woman eventually accepts the man’s original religious identity and converts after the man’s identity is revealed. These cases could be argued as cases of religious brainwashing and a result of the pressure a woman feels after getting into a relationship with a man. The woman, it can be argued, also changed her religious identity because of the stigma she believes she might face if she chooses to walk out of a deceptive relationship. However, for the purpose of documenting hate crimes, the cases in this subcategory are limited to those where there is explicit violence aimed at religious conversion against the wishes of the victim (force-feeding beef, blackmailing with intimate videos, rape on refusal to convert, etc), or if the woman herself complains of the man’s religious deception. In such cases, it is established that the deception of the non-Hindu man had a specific aim of religious conversion or targeting of the victim due to her Hindu religious identity, therefore, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. This case qualified as a religiously motivated hate crime because the Muslim perpetrator did not merely conceal his personal identity; he deliberately adopted a fabricated Hindu identity to approach, befriend, and gain the trust of Hindu girls. By presenting himself as “Rahul” and using a fake Aadhaar card under that Hindu name, he created the impression that he belonged to the same religious community as the victims. The adoption of a Hindu identity was therefore not incidental to the deception, but a calculated method through which access to Hindu girls was obtained. By pretending to be Hindu, the perpetrator deprived the victims of the ability to make an informed decision about whom they wished to trust or associate with. The girls believed they were interacting with a Hindu man, while his actual Muslim identity had been deliberately concealed from them. This manipulation of religious identity created a false sense of familiarity and trust, which was then used to lure the girls through promises of jobs, education, travel and financial opportunities. The religious deception consequently formed the foundation upon which the subsequent exploitation became possible. The case also demonstrated a pattern of targeting Hindu girls rather than an isolated act of impersonation. The perpetrator used the fabricated Hindu identity while approaching vulnerable Hindu girls through social media and attempting to draw them into situations where they could be controlled and exploited. The repeated emphasis on Hindu girls in the accounts surrounding the racket, coupled with the deliberate use of a Hindu name to gain their confidence, established that the victims’ Hindu identity was relevant to the manner in which they were identified, approached and deceived. The sexual exploitation that followed was inseparable from this initial deception. After the girls were lured into the network, they were subjected to sexual assault, intoxicants and forced prostitution. The fabricated Hindu identity functioned as the mechanism through which the perpetrator first secured trust and access; the exploitation occurred only after that trust had been manufactured through religious impersonation. The harm therefore extended beyond ordinary impersonation or sexual crime, because the victims’ religious identity had been consciously manipulated as part of the method used to reach them. Overall, the deliberate adoption of a Hindu name, the concealment of the perpetrator’s Muslim identity, the targeted luring of Hindu girls and the subsequent sexual exploitation together established a clear religious dimension to the offence. The victims were not merely deceived about an ordinary personal detail; their religious trust was specifically manipulated to facilitate access and exploitation. Since the case met the parameters of religiously motivated targeting, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The exact date on which the Hindu girls first came into contact with the accused or when the offences commenced was not specified in the available material. The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the underlying offence occurred rather than when it was subsequently reported or published. Since the exact commencement date could not be determined, 31st August 2026, the date on which Devbhoomi Prime reported the incident on Facebook, has been used as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only. Disclaimer: The complete identity of the rescued Hindu minor girl has not been disclosed in the available material. Only her Jatav surname/community identification was mentioned, while her actual name and exact age were not revealed. Bajrang Dal members stated that she was a minor and that she had studied up to Class 10. The Hinduphobia Tracker has therefore recorded her as a minor Hindu girl from the Jatav community, without assigning any specific name or age beyond what was stated in the available material.