Hindu woman deceived by Muslim man posing as Hindu, later hit and dragged by car after identity deception surfaced in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Case ID : 30aa5c5 | Location : Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 15 September, 2025

Case ID : 30aa5c5

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

15 September, 2025

Hindu woman deceived by Muslim man posing as Hindu, later hit and dragged by car after identity deception surfaced in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Case Summary

In Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman identified as Anamika was deceived and targeted by a Muslim man, Mohammad Shahnawaz. He concealed his religious identity, posed as a Hindu, and entered into a relationship with her using the Hindu name “Yash Thakur”. Later, a video surfaced in which the accused Shahnawaz was seen trying to run over the woman with his car. The viral video showed the woman standing in front of the car and shouting, and suddenly the car started moving, with the woman clinging to its bonnet. The car accelerated as the barefoot woman held onto the bonnet and walked backwards to keep herself from falling. The woman kept yelling at the driver, “Marungi nahi mai, kuch bhi kar lo (I will not die, do whatever you can).” However, the driver refused to stop, even as the woman clung to the bonnet. He dragged the woman for a few metres until she fell down and narrowly escaped being run over. After she fell, the driver sped away without stopping to check on her. Bystanders, who recorded the entire incident, rushed to help the woman. After the video went viral, reports emerged that Shahnawaz had maintained the relationship with Anamika under this false Hindu identity for nearly a year, while the victim remained unaware of his actual name and religious background. On the morning of 16th September 2026, Anamika went to have tea near Janeshwar Mishra Park in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow. Shahnawaz arrived in a car with another woman whom he claimed was his new girlfriend. Anamika, who had reached the area on a scooter, confronted Shahnawaz after seeing him with the other woman and questioned him over the deception surrounding his identity. During the confrontation, Anamika tried to prevent Shahnawaz from leaving by standing in front of his car. He then accelerated and hit her, throwing her onto the bonnet. Instead of stopping, he continued driving with her on the moving vehicle. Eyewitnesses said Anamika was carried and dragged for around 200 to 300 metres. Bystanders chased the car, shouted at Shahnawaz to stop, and threw stones at the vehicle in an attempt to make him halt. One account stated that he accelerated further, causing Anamika to fall from the bonnet, before fleeing the scene. She was subsequently taken to a Community Health Centre (CHC) for treatment and medical examination, and a complaint was filed with the police. Police used the car’s registration number to trace Shahnawaz. Lucknow Police subsequently arrested him, and further legal proceedings were initiated against him in connection with the incident. According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Deeksha Sharma, Shahnawaz and a friend were inside the car. “This morning, information was received that a young woman was hit by a car near Janeshwar Mishra Park. The police team immediately rushed to the spot. Upon inquiry at the scene, it was revealed that the accused had a prior friendship with the victim. Today, when both parties were present at the location, an altercation broke out between them over a certain issue. Following the argument, the young man and his friend got into a vehicle and fled the scene after hitting the girl. The victim was immediately sent for a medical examination. Based on the formal complaint received, a case under charges of attempted murder is being registered…” DCP (East) Sharma said. Speaking to the media, accused Shahnawaz claimed that he hit her in ‘self-defence’. He claimed that the woman had been following her for a long time and denied lying to her about his identity.

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. The tertiary category selected for this case is: Name changed. 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 by a Muslim man pretending to be Hindu and was subsequently subjected to severe physical violence after the deception surrounding his identity came to light. 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 concealing his true identity and presenting himself under the Hindu name “Yash Thakur”, the Muslim man manipulated the Hindu woman’s trust and entered into a relationship with her under false pretences. The relationship was initiated based on a fabricated 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 autonomy. Thus, the perpetrator’s deliberate decision to hide his Muslim identity and assume a Hindu identity strongly underscored the religious dimension of the deception. In such instances, identity concealment is not merely a deceptive tactic for personal reasons but a calculated strategy rooted in exploiting the victim’s religious trust. By representing himself as belonging to the same religious community as the Hindu woman, the accused was able to circumvent any choice she might otherwise have made had she known his actual religious identity. The deliberate adoption of a Hindu name therefore enabled him to gain access to the victim and sustain the relationship on a fundamentally false religious premise. This deception reflected a larger pattern where Hindu women are specifically approached and deceived through fabricated Hindu identities by Muslim men. The Hinduphobia Tracker has documented numerous cases involving such religious identity concealment. Such targeted deception demonstrates a fundamental disregard for the religious identity and autonomy of Hindu women and, when accompanied by subsequent abuse or violence, acquires a clear religiously prejudicial dimension. The physical violence inflicted upon the Hindu woman further aggravated the severity of the crime. After the deception surrounding the accused’s identity surfaced and the woman confronted him, he drove his vehicle into her and continued moving while she remained on the bonnet, carrying and dragging her for a considerable distance before she fell from the vehicle. Thus, after first gaining access to the Hindu woman through religious deception, the accused subjected her to potentially lethal violence when the relationship and his concealed identity became the subject of confrontation. The violence therefore compounded the original deception and demonstrated an extreme disregard for the safety and dignity of the Hindu woman whom he had initially approached under a fabricated Hindu identity. The sequence of events is significant because the false Hindu identity was not peripheral to the relationship; it was the very premise on which the victim had been deceived into trusting the accused. Once that deception was exposed, the situation culminated in violent retaliation rather than accountability or respect for the woman’s autonomy. The combination of deliberate religious identity concealment and subsequent violence against the Hindu victim therefore reflected hostility and disregard towards her religious identity and her right to make an informed choice regarding an interfaith relationship. 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 victim was injured on 16 September 2026, while the religious deception had begun approximately one year earlier. Since the Hinduphobia Tracker records the date from which the victim’s ordeal began, rather than the date on which the incident was reported, and only the year 2025 is known for the beginning of the deception, the incident date has been recorded as 16 September 2025. This date has been derived by applying the known year of commencement, 2025, to the reported date of the subsequent assault, 16 September 2026, with the approximately one-year duration indicating that the deception began around the same date in the preceding year.