Hindu woman lured into relationship and pressured to convert to Islam by Muslim man pretending to be Hindu

Case ID : 30aa55f | Location : Kanpur Dehat, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 13 September, 2024

Case ID : 30aa55f

Kanpur Dehat, Uttar Pradesh, India

13 September, 2024

Hindu woman lured into relationship and pressured to convert to Islam by Muslim man pretending to be Hindu

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Blackmailed to convert

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

In Dehliya village of Rasulabad in Kanpur Dehat district, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship by a Muslim man named Taj Mohammad, son of Tajuddin. The accused had concealed his religious identity and pretended to be a Hindu to deceive her into the relationship. Following this, he pressured her to convert to Islam and subjected her to threats and blackmail when she refused. The woman had been in a relationship with Taj Mohammad for around two years, during which she discovered that he had concealed his true religious identity. He subsequently pressured her to change her religion and convert to Islam. When she refused, his behaviour became threatening, and the situation escalated into intimidation. Taj Mohammad demanded ₹6 lakh from the woman and threatened her with physical harm or death if she did not comply with his demand. She subsequently approached the police, following which a First Information Report (FIR) was registered at Rasulabad police station. The woman also told the police that her private photographs and videos were circulated on social media platforms, including Instagram, after she resisted his demands. The matter subsequently came to wider attention after posts about the case appeared on social media. Some of these posts raised questions about the police’s initial response and stated that the accused had been questioned and released. However, these claims regarding the police’s initial action had not been independently confirmed. Following the woman’s statement, Rasulabad police and a forensic team investigated locations connected with the case. On 29 March 2026, the teams visited a hotel on Bela Road, where they inspected the premises and collected evidence. The investigation focused, among other things, on establishing the identities and ages of people who had visited the hotel and examining how their details had been recorded. Investigators examined the hotel’s registers, identification documents, age-verification records, closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage and other available evidence to determine how the identities and ages of the relevant people had been verified and what had been entered into the records. The woman also told the police that Taj Mohammad had taken her to a field. On 29 March 2026, police and forensic personnel visited the field at her direction, inspected the location and collected available evidence. The evidence gathered from the field and the hotel was to be assessed along with the other material collected during the investigation, with further action to be taken on the basis of the investigation findings and available evidence. Local residents had previously raised concerns about the hotel and described some activities there as suspicious or objectionable. Concerns had also been raised regarding women and minors and objectionable activities at the premises. These concerns were also subject to verification as part of the police investigation. Rasulabad Kotwali in-charge Shivnarayan Singh confirmed that an FIR had been registered in the case and that the investigation was underway. He stated that further action would be taken on the basis of the investigation report and the evidence available to the police.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The first primary category selected in this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected is: Man pretends to be Hindu. 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. The other subcategory selected is: Assault or threat upon refusal to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual, with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressuring the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and, upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. The other subcategory selected is: Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual, with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim; however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual, and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence, etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The second primary category selected is: Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory 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 on 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. In this case, the Hindu woman was deceived into a relationship by a Muslim man who pretended to be Hindu. He subsequently pressured her to convert to Islam and subjected her to threats and blackmail when she refused. Firstly, the perpetrator's act of deception by posing as a Hindu itself demonstrated a clear bias and malicious intent towards the victim’s religion. By hiding his true identity, the Muslim man manipulated the Hindu woman’s trust and targeted her under false pretences, indicating a premeditated effort to exploit the woman based on her religious background. The relationship was initiated on the basis of a false religious identity, which constituted a direct violation of her right to make an informed choice about whom she chose to enter into a relationship with, as well as an infringement upon her religious beliefs. Thus, the perpetrator’s deliberate decision to hide his religious identity strongly underscored the religious motive behind this crime. In such instances, identity concealment was not just a deceptive tactic for personal reasons but a calculated strategy rooted in religious profiling and targeting. The accused was aware that the victim, being Hindu, would likely refuse his advances if she knew his real identity, and he circumvented this by lying, which directly pointed to a religiously driven intent. This deception reflected a larger pattern where Hindu women are specifically singled out and targeted using false identities by Muslim men, often with coercion or conversion in mind. Such targeted victimisation based on religion not only demonstrated a fundamental disregard for Hinduism but also exposed a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. Secondly, the perpetrator’s act of pressuring the Hindu woman to convert to Islam demonstrated deep-seated religious hostility and a fundamental disregard for her Hindu faith. By attempting to compel her to abandon her religion and adopt Islam against her wishes, he violated her religious autonomy and fundamental right to freely practise and retain her faith. The demand treated her Hindu identity and beliefs as inferior and as something that needed to be discarded in favour of another religion, reflecting a mindset that viewed his own faith as superior to hers. This attempt to impose a different religious identity went beyond a personal dispute and demonstrated hostility towards the victim’s identity as a Hindu. Taken together with the deliberate religious deception used to initiate the relationship, the pressure to convert showed that the victim was targeted on the basis of her Hindu identity and constituted a religiously driven hate crime. Thirdly, the intimidation and blackmail that followed the Hindu woman’s refusal to convert demonstrated hostility towards her Hindu faith. She was threatened with physical harm or death after refusing to abandon Hinduism, directly linking the threats to her decision to retain her religion. Using fear and coercion to force her to reconsider her faith violated her religious autonomy and showed contempt for her right to remain Hindu. The escalation from pressure to convert to threats and blackmail indicated that her refusal to give up Hinduism was met with intimidation, making her religious identity central to the coercion. This demonstrated that the perpetrator sought to undermine her right to retain her faith through fear, reflecting a hostile attitude towards Hinduism and constituting a religiously driven hate crime. Overall, since this case meets the parameters of a religiously motivated crime, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the date of an incident based on when the crime occurred or when the victim’s ordeal began, rather than the date on which it was reported by the media. However, in the present case, media reports did not specify the exact date on which the victim’s ordeal began. They only stated that the victim had met the perpetrator two years ago. As the media report was published on 14 September 2026, an indicative incident date of 14 September 2024 was selected based on the available information. This date was used for documentation purposes only and did not represent a confirmed date of the incident.