Hindu woman lured into relationship and sexually exploited by Muslim man posing as Hindu in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh

Case ID : 30aa575 | Location : Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 14 April, 2026

Case ID : 30aa575

Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, India

14 April, 2026

Hindu woman lured into relationship and sexually exploited by Muslim man posing as Hindu in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Case Summary

In Mandi, Himachal Pradesh, a Hindu woman from Chandigarh was targeted by a Muslim man named Sameer, a resident of Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. He trapped the woman through a fake social media identity, lured her into a relationship and sexually exploited her for around five months on the pretext of marriage. He also financially defrauded her and later abandoned her. The accused established contact with the Hindu woman through social media while concealing his identity and falsely assuring her that he would marry her. He further involved his relatives in the deception and made the woman speak to members of his family. They assured her that the marriage would be arranged once their new house was completed. Relying on these assurances, the woman continued the relationship with the accused. Under the pretext of marriage and constructing the new house, the accused took ₹70,000 in cash, gold earrings and other valuable jewellery from the woman. He also took her to Muzaffarnagar to meet his relatives, further reinforcing the assurance that their relationship would culminate in marriage. The accused subsequently arranged a rented room for the woman in Chandigarh, where he kept her for several months and repeatedly raped her. His family had been living and working in Mandi for several years. In August, the accused brought the woman to Mandi, where he again raped her. The woman repeatedly asked the accused and his family to fulfil their promise of marriage, but they continued postponing it on different pretexts. After being repeatedly given false assurances of marriage, she approached the Mandi urban police outpost. There, the accused and his family entered into a written agreement before the police, assuring her that the marriage would take place soon. Despite the written assurance, the accused subsequently fled. Before leaving, he took the woman’s iPhone, valued at approximately ₹80,000. The reports stated that he took the phone with the intention of destroying evidence connected with the case. After escaping from the accused’s control, the woman approached the Muzaffarnagar Police and lodged a complaint. The Muzaffarnagar Police registered a Zero FIR and transferred the case to the Mandi Police for investigation. After the Mandi Police began investigating the matter, the accused and his family left their known location in Mandi and disappeared. The police conducted the woman’s medical examination and recorded her statement before a magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC. A case was registered against the accused under various provisions relating to rape, fraud and theft. A special police team was formed to arrest him and began conducting raids at possible hideouts. The woman was described as destitute and had been subjected to a prolonged sequence of online deception, false assurances of marriage, financial exploitation, repeated sexual abuse and subsequent abandonment. The accused remained absconding while the police continued efforts to locate and arrest him.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category selected for this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The other 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. This case is a clear example of a religiously motivated hate crime, as a Hindu woman was deceived into a relationship and was sexually exploited by a Muslim man pretending to be Hindu. 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 exploitation 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. Under the guise of this religious deception, the accused sexually exploited the Hindu woman by obtaining her consent for a sexual relationship under the false impression that he was a Hindu man and that he would marry her. Her consent was therefore manipulated through the concealment of his true religious identity and the false promise of marriage. By using her belief in his fabricated Hindu identity to gain her trust and sexually exploit her, the accused specifically targeted her as a Hindu woman and sexually violated her through deception centred on her religious identity. The sexual exploitation was thus not merely a case of sexual abuse, but a targeted act in which the victim’s Hindu identity was exploited to facilitate the abuse, making it a clear instance of religiously driven sexual violence rooted in anti-Hindu hostility. It was done with the intent to humiliate and degrade a Hindu woman on account of her faith. The financial exploitation suffered by the victim further aggravated the severity of the crime and compounded her overall suffering. Under the pretext of marriage and constructing a new house, the accused took ₹70,000 in cash, gold earrings and other valuable jewellery from her. Thus, after gaining her trust through religious deception and sexually exploiting her, the accused also subjected her to financial exploitation, causing her additional material and emotional suffering. Overall, since the case meets the parameters of a religiously driven hate crime, it was added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on the date on which the victim’s ordeal began, rather than the date on which the case was subsequently reported or brought to public attention. In this case, the available media reports did not specify the exact date on which the Hindu woman’s ordeal began. However, the reports stated that the exploitation had continued for approximately five months, with the case being reported in the media on 15 September 2026. Based on this information, 15 April 2026 has been recorded as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only.