Hindu woman lured into relationship and forcibly converted to Islam for nikah by Muslim man; assaulted and made to eat cow meat

Case ID : 30ab0c8 | Location : Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 22 October, 2011

Case ID : 30ab0c8

Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

22 October, 2011

Hindu woman lured into relationship and forcibly converted to Islam for nikah by Muslim man; assaulted and made to eat cow meat

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Forced to eat beef

Case Summary

A Hindu woman from Fatehpur district, Uttar Pradesh, was lured into a relationship, forcibly converted to Islam and underwent nikah by a Muslim man named Naseem. According to reports, a Muslim man named Naseem, a resident of Koda village in Bihar, had lured the Hindu woman into a relationship around 15 years earlier, in 2011, by brainwashing her and trapping her in a love affair. He subsequently took her to Mumbai, where he forcibly converted her to Islam and performed nikah with him. Following her conversion, her name was changed to Simran. During their time in Mumbai, the victim gave birth to two sons, Murshid Ali and Arshad Ali, and a daughter, Katrina. She was also forced to eat cow meat. According to the report, Naseem later married another woman in Mumbai and began physically assaulting and harassing the Hindu woman on a daily basis. Unable to endure the continued abuse, she left Mumbai and returned to her village in Fatehpur with her three children. After learning about the victim's circumstances, members of the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Gayatri Parivar intervened and facilitated the family's return to Hinduism. Religious rites and rituals were performed at the Gayatri Temple in Fatehpur city, where Simran and her three children were brought back to Sanatan Dharma through the chanting of mantras. As part of the ceremony, the victim's name was changed from Simran to Smita Kushwaha. Her sons, Arshad Ali and Murshid Ali, were renamed Kartik and Yas, respectively, while her daughter, Katrina, was renamed Avni.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category for this case is "Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes". The sub-category here is "Forced conversion before marriage". The tertiary categories here are "Forced to follow non-Hindu religious practices" and "Forced to eat beef". In such cases, a non-Hindu man is in a relationship with a Hindu woman when the pressure to convert her religion begins to manifest. In such cases, typically, two patterns emerge. First, when the relationship is consensual, and the religious identity of the perpetrator is known to the Hindu woman in the relationship, however, at some point during the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts to force the victim to convert her religion and give up her Hindu religious identity. The second is when the woman gets into a marriage with the man pretending to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert her religion and give up her religious identity. In both the situations, the methods used to force the victim to convert her religion often revolve around force-feeding beef, forcing her to wear hijab, forcing her to read the Kalma or even pressurizing the victim to do ‘Nikah’, which is marriage under Islamic law, with a prerequisite being conversion to Islam. Cases where a Hindu woman consensually converts to Islam in a relationship will be left out of the hate crime database, even though it could be argued in several cases that the conversion was a result of religious brainwashing. The case reflected the targeting of a Hindu woman's religious identity through brainwashing, religious conversion and coercion within an intimate relationship. The pressure to abandon Hinduism, coupled with the imposition of Islamic religious practices, including being made to eat cow meat, demonstrated that the conduct was rooted in religious animosity. The accused's efforts to force the victim to convert to Islam demonstrate hostility towards her Hindu religious identity. By pressuring a Hindu girl to abandon her faith and embrace Islam, he treated her religious identity as something that had to be stripped away and replaced with another faith. Religious conversion must stem from an individual’s own conviction and free choice, not from manipulation or brainwashing. In this case, the victim was lured into a relationship and brainwashed into converting to Islam. Pressuring a Hindu individual to discard her religious faith and embrace another was a direct attack on her religious identity and dignity. It was not a matter of personal choice; it was coercion rooted in hostility towards the victim's Hindu identity. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act was not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. The fact that the victim was also pressured to undergo nikah further illustrates how marriage was linked to the attempted religious conversion. Under traditional Islamic jurisprudence, a Muslim man’s marriage to a non-Muslim woman is subject to restrictions, and a woman who does not fall within the recognised categories of permissible non-Muslim spouses would be required to embrace Islam for the marriage to be recognised as valid under that framework. The circumstances in this case, in which the accused brainwashed the Hindu woman, took her to Mumbai and converted her to Islam, demonstrate that marriage and conversion were intertwined in his plans. The pressure to convert in connection with nikah showcases that marriage was being used as a means of securing religious conversion and exerting control over the victim’s personal and religious autonomy. Rather than respecting the victim’s right to determine her own faith and future, the accused converted her to Islam and forced her to undergo nikah. This connection between the conversion and nikah further reinforces the religiously coercive nature of the case. Furthermore, the victim was forced by the Muslim accused to eat cow meat, an act prohibited in Hinduism, where the cow is considered sacred. Forcing her to consume cow meat was a deliberate attempt to dishonour her religion and humiliate her. This was not only sacrilegious but also a further tactic to weaken her attachment to her faith and force her towards conversion. Such acts have a precedent in history, where Hindu victims were forcibly fed beef by Muslim extremists to desecrate their beliefs and push them towards abandoning their Hindu faith. In this case, the force-feeding of cow meat was both an act of grave religious violation and an instrument in attempted forced conversion, shaped by hostility towards the Hindu victim and her faith, rendering this, unequivocally, a religiously motivated hate crime. It is also important to address a question that often arises in such cases: if the woman was forced into conversion and nikah, why did she remain in the relationship for several years? Such questions overlook the realities faced by many women in abusive or deceptive marriages. Walking away from a marriage is rarely an immediate or straightforward decision, especially once a family has been established. Emotional attachment, financial dependence, fear of social stigma, pressure from family, uncertainty about rebuilding one's life, and concerns over the future and custody of children often leave women feeling trapped. Many continue to hope that the situation will improve or fear that leaving will expose them and their children to even greater hardship. The fact that a victim remained in the relationship for years, therefore, should not be interpreted as acceptance of the deception or as evidence that the initial fraud became irrelevant. Instead, it reflects the difficult personal, social, and economic realities that often prevent victims from leaving relationships founded on deception. Taken together, the circumstances provided grounds to examine the case as an instance of religiously motivated hate crime directed at the Hindu woman. Such actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. Such acts were not merely personal crimes; they were rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. Since such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case have specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began, though it is mentioned that she was lured into a relationship about 15 years ago, in 2011. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date, 23 October 2021, as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 23 October, 2026, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.