Hindu man deceived into relationship, pressured to convert to Islam, drugged and forcibly circumcised by Muslim wife and her family in Assam

Case ID : 30ab29a | Location : Assam, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 1 November, 2020

Case ID : 30ab29a

Assam, India

1 November, 2020

Hindu man deceived into relationship, pressured to convert to Islam, drugged and forcibly circumcised by Muslim wife and her family in Assam

Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women

Forced to convert after marriage

Forced circumcision

Attacked by non-Hindu partner or/and her family

Torture of family to force man to convert

Threatened to convert by family of partner

Case Summary

In Mankachar, Assam, a Hindu man named Akhil Kumar Chand was pressured by his Muslim wife, Noorsika Begum, and her family to convert to Islam. His mother-in-law and two other individuals drugged him and forcibly circumcised him as part of converting him to Islam. He was threatened with divorce if he refused to abandon his Hindu name and religion. Akhil Kumar Chand, a native of Rajasthan, met Noorsika Begum in Delhi. Noorsika Begum originally hailed from Mankachar in Assam. According to the victim, Noorsika had been abducted and brought to Delhi for trafficking and sexual exploitation when she approached Chand and requested him to allow her to make a call from his phone. Chand helped her contact her family and return home. The two subsequently developed a romantic relationship and married in 2020. The couple later had a daughter. During the initial years of their marriage, Noorsika's family concealed their marital relationship from the local Muslim community, fearing social opposition to an interfaith marriage between a Hindu man and a Muslim woman. Chand was introduced to villagers as Noorsika's cousin. After about three years of marriage, villagers learned that Chand was Hindu. Following this, pressure to convert to Islam began and continued for around three years. His in-laws insisted that he legally change his Hindu name and convert to Islam, and warned him that his relationship with his wife would end if he refused to do so. Approximately six months before his November 2026 interview, Chand was drugged and forcibly circumcised near the Television Tower in the Bhangagarh area of Guwahati, Assam. His mother-in-law and two other individuals were involved in the incident. Following the procedure, he developed an infection and underwent medical treatment first in Hatigaon, Guwahati, and later in Bengaluru, Karnataka. On 26 October 2026, Chand approached Bhangagarh Police Station in Guwahati and lodged a First Information Report (FIR) against his wife and her family members. Following the complaint, Chand was taken to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in Guwahati for a medical examination. The medical examination confirmed that he had undergone circumcision. After filing the police complaint, Noorsika Begum went into hiding, while the couple's six-year-old daughter remained with Chand's mother-in-law. Chand also expressed concern about being separated from his daughter. The police subsequently initiated an investigation into the matter.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women. Within it, the sub-category selected is: Forced to convert after marriage. The tertiary category selected is: Forced circumcision. In such cases, a non-Hindu woman marries a Hindu man and the force/pressure against the Hindu man to convert to Islam begins after marriage. In such cases, the marriage is consensual in most cases and often, there is no element of the non-Hindu woman hiding her religious identity. The marriage could be under the Special Marriages Act where neither parties are required to convert their religion for the marriage to be considered legitimate. While the victim in such cases enters matrimony assuming that religious identity is not a barrier, the non-Hindu woman starts to pressure the Hindu man to convert to Islam after marriage. In such cases, there is application of force/pressure by the perpetrator, including, denial of the man’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the man is forced/pressured to convert include forcing/pressurizing the man to involuntarily consume beef, pressurizing/forcing to read the Kalma, forced circumcision, forced to go to the mosque, etc. There are several instances where after marriage, the man voluntarily converts to Islam. Such cases are often argued to be a result of religious brainwashing, however, for the purpose of documenting religiously motivated hate crimes, in the absence of the victim complaining of forced conversion, such cases do not form a part of the database. The other subcategory selected is: Attacked by non-Hindu partner or/and her family. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the man is forced to convert his religion and upon his refusal to do so, the partner or/and her family attacks the victim. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu woman known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu woman or her family starts forcing/pressurizing the Hindu man to convert. In some of these cases, the association could be non-consensual as well or, the religious identity of the non-Hindu woman could be previously unknown to the Hindu victim. In such cases, the Hindu man is first forced/pressurized to change his religion by the non-Hindu woman or her family. The force/pressure could involve threats. The trigger for directing violence against the Hindu man is in these cases, his refusal to comply and change his religion under threat and/or force. The other subcategory selected is: Torture of family to force man to convert. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the Hindu spouse is forced to convert his religion. Several methods are used for such forced conversion. The non-Hindu woman and/or her family, and religious leaders are often documented to issue threats and even employ violence. One of the ways used by such perpetrators is threatening and/or torturing the family members of the Hindu man to pressure him to convert. The perpetrators in such cases issue threats to harm or torture the family of the man. In some cases, there is also violence directed towards the family in order to force the Hindu man to convert. The aim of such crimes is to blackmail the victim into changing his religion by inducing fear of harm to his family. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The other subcategory selected is: Threatened to convert by family of partner. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the man faces threats to convert and change his religious identity by the non-Hindu woman or her family. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu woman known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu woman or her family starts forcing/pressurizing the Hindu man to convert to Islam and also assaults the victim to force him to convert. 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 man 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 man was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. In other cases that have been documented, it is also seen that the Hindu partner is assaulted by the non-Hindu woman or her family simply for his relationship with the non-Hindu woman and by virtue of him following the Hindu faith and not the religion of the non-Hindu woman. In such cases, the relationship is consensual in most cases, and the religion of both partners is known to the other. Often, in such cases, there is no direct force/pressure to convert either; however, the attack is a result of the Hindu man being in a relationship with the non-Hindu partner and not following her religion/following Hinduism specifically. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. This case has been added to the hate crime database because the Hindu victim was pressured to convert to Islam and subjected to forcible circumcision. He was also threatened with marital abandonment if he refused to change his Hindu name and convert to Islam by members of his Muslim wife's family. The incident was not an ordinary domestic dispute. The coercive nature of the acts establishes a direct nexus between the harm inflicted upon the victim and attempts to compel him to abandon his Hindu religious identity. The sustained pressure exerted on a Hindu man to abandon Hinduism and embrace Islam constituted a direct assault on his Hindu religious identity. His Muslim wife and her family subjected him to continuous pressure to relinquish his faith, making his religious identity a source of conflict within his own marriage. The coercion intensified after people in his wife's village discovered that he was a Hindu, exposing the hostility towards the interfaith marriage and his refusal to adopt Islam. For approximately three years, Chand faced pressure to abandon the religion he identified with and replace it with Islam. His Hindu identity was treated as something that had to be erased rather than respected, while his acceptance within his wife's family was made conditional upon religious submission. Such coercion struck at the fundamental right of a Hindu individual to retain his faith without intimidation, pressure or punishment. Of particular severity was the forcible circumcision of Chand, which represented an extreme violation of his bodily autonomy and an assault on his Hindu identity. Circumcision holds specific religious significance in Islam and is practised among Muslim males as a marker of adherence to the Islamic faith and way of life. Forced circumcision had historically been used by Muslim extremists and, in accounts of medieval Muslim invasions and conquests in the Indian subcontinent, as a coercive means of forcing Hindus to accept Islam. In this case, the attempt to forcibly circumcise the Hindu man as part of his conversion to Islam demonstrated the use of a deeply religiously significant and permanent bodily procedure as a tool of coercion. This was therefore not a minor or incidental act of bodily modification, but a deliberate attempt to impose an Islamic religious marker on the victim and alter his religious identity by force. The targeting of the Hindu man through such coercive means demonstrated deep-seated religious hostility towards his Hindu faith and identity, while the use of forced circumcision to facilitate his conversion further demonstrated the extent of the religious hostility driving the incident. Equally concerning was the demand that Chand legally change his Hindu name, accompanied by threats of marital abandonment. This attempted to strip him of an important expression of his religious and cultural identity. His in-laws made the continuation of his marriage conditional upon his willingness to change his name and submit to their demands for conversion. This placed him under immense emotional pressure, forcing him to choose between retaining his Hindu identity and preserving his relationship with his wife. His Hindu name was not merely a matter of personal identification; it represented his existing religious and cultural background. By threatening to sever his marital relationship if he refused to change it, his wife's family attempted to make the abandonment of his Hindu identity the price of remaining with his wife. Such coercion reduced his marriage to an instrument of religious pressure and sought to punish him for refusing to surrender his Hindu identity. Furthermore, the deliberate concealment of Chand's Hindu identity from the local Muslim community and his introduction as Noorsika Begum's cousin, specifically as the son of her aunt, rather than as her husband, reflected the suppression of his identity as a Hindu man within his wife's social and familial environment. His wife's family concealed the interfaith marriage because they feared that the community would not accept a Hindu man marrying a Muslim woman. Instead of acknowledging their marriage, they misrepresented his relationship with Begum and concealed his actual religious identity. This denied him open recognition as her Hindu husband and treated the existence of their interfaith marriage as something that had to remain hidden to secure social acceptance. The situation became more hostile after people in the village discovered that Chand was Hindu, following which pressure to convert began. His Hindu identity was thus first concealed to accommodate the family's social concerns and subsequently became the basis for coercion, threats and physical violation. This reflected a pattern in which his acceptance within his wife's family and community was made conditional upon the suppression and eventual abandonment of his Hindu identity. This incident falls into a broader and disturbing pattern where Hindu men are targeted specifically for being in relationships with Muslim women. These assaults are often framed as matters of "honour," but the underlying motivation is deeply religious. In the Islamic faith, a marriage is considered invalid if a Muslim woman marries a non-Muslim man who does not convert to Islam. In many such cases, the religious identity of the Hindu male partner, or his family, becomes the key trigger for violence, especially when there is no conversion to Islam. Even if conversion is not directly demanded in every case, the death threats or violence are often aimed at punishing the Hindu man for not adhering to Islamic norms in the context of a relationship with a Muslim woman. It reflects a broader ecosystem of intolerance, where Hindu men are seen as transgressors for engaging in interfaith relationships or marriages with Muslim women. Akhil Kumar Chand's assault was not incidental; it was deliberate and symbolic, aimed at enforcing religious boundaries through violence. For these reasons, the case is being added to the tracker as a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime against a Hindu individual. Disclaimer: The available sources did not specify the exact date the Hindu man and his Muslim wife first came into contact. However, their marriage was reported to have taken place in 2020. The tracker records incident dates based on when the crime occurred, not when it was reported or published. In this case, 2nd November 2020 has been used as the indicative incident date, derived by aligning the known year of marriage (2020) with the date of the first identified media report, published on 2nd November 2026. This date has been recorded for documentation purposes only.