Hindu woman deceived, impregnated and pressured to convert to Islam by Muslim man faking Hindu identity; brutally assaulted upon refusal

Case ID : 30ab1b1 | Location : Chandigarh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 28 October, 2019

Case ID : 30ab1b1

Chandigarh, India

28 October, 2019

Hindu woman deceived, impregnated and pressured to convert to Islam by Muslim man faking Hindu identity; brutally assaulted upon refusal

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Forced conversion before marriage

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Case Summary

A Hindu woman was deceived, sexually exploited and impregnated by a 35-year-old Muslim man named Salman, who posed as a Hindu. He also pressured her to convert to Islam for marriage and assaulted her when she refused. According to reports, the victim came into contact with the accused, Salman, son of Zahid Ahmed, in Chandigarh in 2019. At the time, the Hindu woman, a resident of a village in Deoria district, was working at a mall in Chandigarh, while Salman was working as an autorickshaw driver. He befriended her by posing as a Hindu man named Sandeep and subsequently began living with her under the pretext of marriage. The two lived together for around seven years and had three children without getting married. During this period, the victim continued living with Salman along with their three children. Salman's actual religious identity was eventually exposed when one of their children was taken to a hospital in Chandigarh for vaccination. His Aadhaar card revealed his actual name as Salman, son of Zahid Ahmed, and his address as Habibwala village in Dhampur, Bijnor. Following the revelation, the victim asked him to marry her, but he refused. Salman subsequently took their three children to his native village in Bijnor. When the victim later reached the village, Salman and his parents pressured her to convert to Islam so that she could marry him. When she refused to change her religion, she was assaulted and thrown out of the house. The victim approached the police, following which an FIR was registered on the basis of her complaint. On 29 October 2026, Dhampur police arrested Salman under relevant provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act. Superintendent of Police KK Bishnoi confirmed the arrest during a press conference held at 2 pm on 29 October 2026.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category selected in this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The first subcategory selected is: Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary category selected 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 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. The other sub-category selected here is - Forced conversion before marriage. 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 other sub-category selected here 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 pressurizing 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 case constituted a hate crime because the accused concealed his religious identity and pressured the Hindu victim to convert to Islam. Salman introduced himself as Sandeep, presenting himself under a Hindu identity while concealing that he was Muslim. This itself is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, he exploited her trust, targeting her under false pretences. This indicates a premeditated intent to manipulate her based on her religious background. In cases like these, the tactic of adopting a false Hindu identity to manipulate and "ensnare" a Hindu individual is not just an act of personal betrayal but can also be interpreted as an expression of disdain or disregard for Hinduism and its customs that reflects a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. In such instances, identity concealment is not just a deceptive tactic for personal reasons but a calculated strategy rooted in religious profiling and targeting. The perpetrator 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 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 toward Hindus and their beliefs. The religious dimension of the case became particularly evident when Salman's actual identity was exposed. Rather than respecting the woman's decision to seek clarity about their relationship and marriage, he refused to marry her and subsequently subjected her to pressure to abandon her religion. The demand that she convert to Islam as a condition for marriage demonstrated that the relationship was being placed within a framework in which her religious identity was expected to change, while her own religious autonomy and right to remain Hindu were disregarded. The involvement of Salman's parents further reinforced the religious nature of the coercion. The woman was not merely subjected to pressure from her partner over the future of their relationship; she was also confronted with pressure from his family to convert 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. Furthermore, her refusal to abandon her religion was followed by physical assault and expulsion from the household. This sequence of events was significant because the violence occurred in the context of her resistance to religious conversion. The violence was used to punish her refusal to relinquish her faith and compel her towards religious compliance. Resorting to physical force because a Hindu victim chose to retain her religion demonstrated that her Hindu identity was being treated as an obstacle that had to be overcome through violence. The assault therefore reflected hostility towards her Hindu faith and demonstrated the extreme coercive measures employed to force her religious abandonment. Such acts are carried out by Muslim perpetrators due to indoctrination by Islamic theology, which advocates that all non-Muslims (referred to as kafirs) are inferior and subject to subjugation unless they convert to Islam or live under Islamic rule (dhimmitude). These ideas are not mere abstractions; they manifest in actions where non-Muslims, especially Hindus in India, are seen as targets for religious domination, coercion, or humiliation. This theological framework fosters an "us versus them" mindset, in which any assertion of Hindu identity or religious freedom is seen not only as undesirable but as a threat to Islamic supremacy. As a result, perpetrators who are shaped by such teachings feel justified, even morally obligated, to harass, suppress, or violently attack Hindus, particularly when Hindus assert their religious rights or resist conversion. As a result, Muslim perpetrators invoke such doctrines to justify coercive attempts to convert non-Muslims, particularly Hindus, portraying conversion as a means of abandoning Kufr (a state of disbelief in Islam or disbelief in Islam) and attaining salvation. Such acts, therefore, are not isolated but driven by a broader ideological hostility towards Hindus as non-believers and reflect an attempt to impose religious dominance. Since this case was also not a random isolated incident of grooming of a minor but a premeditated attack motivated by bias and hatred against the Hindu community, which is a defining feature of hate crimes, this has been added to the tracker. 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 came into contact with the accused in 2019, in Chandigarh. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date, 29 October 2019, as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 29 October 2026, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.