Hindu woman deceived, raped and held hostage by Muslim man posing as Hindu; accused similarly exploited several other Hindu women

Case ID : 30aa7c9 | Location : Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 21 September, 2021

Case ID : 30aa7c9

Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India

21 September, 2021

Hindu woman deceived, raped and held hostage by Muslim man posing as Hindu; accused similarly exploited several other Hindu women

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Raped and/or murdered after Hindu woman finds out real identity

Pattern of targeting Hindu women

Case Summary

In Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu woman was deceived into a relationship by a Muslim man named Afzal Khan. The accused concealed his religious identity and pretended to be a Hindu youth named Saurabh. The victim was also sexually exploited and physically assaulted by the accused over a prolonged period. The victim revealed that he had similarly targeted and exploited several other Hindu women. According to media reports, the accused was a Muslim man from Uttar Pradesh. After befriending the woman in 2021, Khan sexually exploited her for five years. He also recorded obscene photographs and videos of her. The woman discovered his real identity through his Aadhaar card, following which Khan held her hostage for eight months and repeatedly physically assaulted and raped her. The woman eventually escaped and approached the MP Nagar Police Station, accompanied by members of Hindu organisations. In her complaint, she stated that Khan had used a consultancy business in Bhopal to lure several Hindu women and possessed objectionable photographs and videos of several Hindu women. Following this, the members of Hindu organisations protested outside the police station, demanding immediate action against the accused.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected is: Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary category selected is: Name changed, Raped and/or murdered after Hindu woman finds out real identity, and Pattern of targeting Hindu women. 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 malafide 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 incident is a clear example of a religiously driven hate crime, as a Hindu woman was deceived into a relationship by a Muslim man who concealed his religious identity and pretended to be Hindu. She was subsequently sexually exploited, held hostage, raped and physically assaulted by the perpetrator. 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 her based on her religious background. This constituted a direct violation of her right to informed consent regarding whom she chose to be in 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 the crime. In such instances, identity concealment is not merely 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 in which Hindu women are specifically singled out 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. The fact that the victim was sexually exploited while the perpetrator concealed his religious identity further demonstrated the religious dimension of the crime. She did not give informed consent to the relationship, as the perpetrator had deliberately hidden information relevant to her decision to engage in an intimate relationship. This violated her personal and bodily autonomy, as well as her religious autonomy to decide whom she wished to engage in physical relations with. By pretending to be Hindu to gain her trust and subsequently sexually exploit her, the perpetrator used religious deception as a means to facilitate the abuse. When the victim discovered his true identity, the perpetrator did not stop his conduct or show remorse. Instead, he held her hostage for eight months, repeatedly raped her and physically assaulted her. The fact that he resorted to prolonged captivity and further violence after his religious deception was exposed demonstrated the hostility directed towards the victim as a Hindu woman. His conduct showed that the abuse did not end with the deception being uncovered, but escalated into prolonged physical and sexual violence. Furthermore, the victim revealed that the perpetrator had similarly targeted and exploited several other Hindu women. This indicated that the incident was not isolated, but part of a pattern in which Hindu women were selectively targeted, religiously profiled and exploited. The repeated targeting of Hindu women demonstrated that their religious identity was a significant factor in the perpetrator’s conduct, reflecting deep-seated hostility towards the Hindu community. Taken together, the deliberate concealment of religious identity, sexual exploitation under a false Hindu identity, prolonged rape and physical abuse, and the targeting of other Hindu women demonstrated a pattern of religiously driven victimisation. The incident therefore constituted a clear example of a religiously driven hate crime and was added to the Hinduphobia Tracker’s hate crime database. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the date of an incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, rather than when the incident was reported or covered by the media. In this case, media reports did not state the exact date on which the victim’s ordeal began, but indicated that it began approximately five years earlier, in 2021. The report concerning the incident was published on 22 September 2026. Based on these details, 22 September 2021 has been selected as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only. Although the available information indicated that multiple Hindu women had been targeted by the accused, the total number of victims was not specified. Only one Hindu woman was specifically identified in connection with the present incident. Therefore, the victim count has been recorded as one. This represents a conservative estimate for documentation purposes only.