Hindu women religiously profiled, sexually exploited and pressured to convert to Islam by Muslim doctor at a medical university in Lucknow

Case ID : 30ab374 | Location : Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 24 December, 2025

Case ID : 30ab374

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

24 December, 2025

Hindu women religiously profiled, sexually exploited and pressured to convert to Islam by Muslim doctor at a medical university in Lucknow

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Pattern of targeting Hindus

Forced conversion before marriage

Case Summary

Another incident of religiously motivated targeting of Hindu women came to light at King George’s Medical University (KGMU) in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. In this incident, Hindu women were religiously profiled and targeted by a Muslim resident doctor named Mohammad Adil. The accused selectively targeted Hindu women, lured them into relationships, sexually exploited them and pressured them to convert to Islam. Adil was also part of an organised conversion network operating within the university, which aimed to target Hindu medical students, doctors and other personnel and convert them to Islam. Notably, this incident came to light following an earlier case of forced religious conversion and sexual exploitation of a Hindu woman at KGMU, Lucknow, which had previously been documented by the Hinduphobia Tracker. The victim, Dr Devatri Mitra, a Hindu resident doctor at the university, was targeted by Rameezuddin Nayak (Rameez Malik). In December 2025, he lured her into a relationship under the pretext of marriage and sexually exploited her before pressuring her to convert to Islam as a condition of marrying him. When she refused to abandon her faith, he ended the relationship and subjected her to sustained harassment and intimidation, driving her to attempt suicide on 17 December 2025. Following this, Dr Devatri exposed his involvement in a wider conversion racket targeting Hindu women, students and employees within the university. A First Information Report (FIR) was registered at Chowk Police Station on 23 December 2025, prompting the Uttar Pradesh government to order an investigation by the Special Task Force (STF). The STF submitted its report on 25 October 2026, exposing a wider conversion network involving several Muslim doctors and senior faculty members and bringing the ordeal of the Hindu women in the present case to light. The Special Task Force (STF) inquiry identified Mohammad Adil, a resident doctor at King George’s Medical University (KGMU), as having targeted multiple Hindu women working at the university. Adil lured several Hindu women into relationships and sexually exploited them under the pretext of marriage. Two of the women specifically identified in the inquiry were Maviya and Meenakshi Pandey, both Hindu nurses employed at KGMU. Maviya was lured into a relationship by Adil, following which he sexually exploited her under the pretext of marriage and pressured her to convert to Islam. Subsequently, in December 2025, she filed a complaint against Adil at Kaiserbagh Police Station in Lucknow, following which a First Information Report (FIR) was registered under the provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. Separately, Meenakshi Pandey made an oral complaint against Adil concerning her exploitation. The STF report recorded the complaints made by both women while documenting Adil’s targeting and exploitation of Hindu female employees. It also mentioned that Adil had targeted other women, although their identities and the individual circumstances of their cases were not specified. Notably, the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) report submitted on 25 October 2026 exposed a widespread and organised religious conversion network operating within King George's Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, and extending to other medical institutions, including Sarojini Naidu Medical College (SNMC), Agra, and Etah Medical College. Dr Rameezuddin Nayak (Rameez Malik) was identified as one of the key figures in this network, which connected Muslim medical students, resident doctors and university personnel across institutions. Operating through interconnected groups, including one known as 'Islamic Medicos', the network systematically targeted Hindu women doctors, students and employees through relationships, sexual exploitation, blackmail and pressure to convert to Islam. The investigation also exposed the involvement of several medical personnel and university staff members who facilitated these activities, protected those involved and enabled the network to operate across departments and institutions. The STF report further documented systematic religious discrimination against Hindu doctors, students and employees within KGMU. Hindu residents faced discriminatory treatment, harassment, adverse professional assessments and unequal treatment on account of their religious identity, while Muslim students and employees received preferential treatment. The report also exposed how influential faculty members and university personnel shielded those involved, discouraged complaints and created an institutional environment in which Hindu women who resisted religious coercion or sought action faced intimidation and professional repercussions. The investigation additionally brought to light the systematic propagation of hardline Islamic ideology and religious radicalisation among Muslim medical students. It specifically highlighted the promotion of the ideology of Islamic extremist preacher Zakir Naik, who was banned in India and whose organisation, the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), was declared an unlawful association under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). The report documented organised religious gatherings, the use of university facilities for religious activities and visits by Islamic preachers from outside Lucknow. These activities demonstrated that the network extended beyond individual conversion attempts and involved organised efforts to promote hardline religious ideology within medical institutions. Significantly, the STF report also established Rameezuddin's association with Dr Shaheen Saeed, who was apprehended in connection with the 2025 Delhi Red Fort blast case. He had met her at a medical conference and was influenced by her radical Islamic ideology. During interrogation, he acknowledged his association with her. Electronic devices recovered from him contained contacts of several Hindu women he had approached and pressured to embrace Islam, along with photographs of around 50 women. The report further exposed the financial incentives attached to the conversion operation: ₹15 lakh was offered for converting Hindu medical professionals and doctors, while ₹5 lakh was offered for converting other Hindu individuals. Taken together, the findings exposed an organised network involving the targeting of Hindu women across medical institutions, religious discrimination, ideological radicalisation, institutional support and financial incentives for religious conversion.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is being added to the tracker under the primary category: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected is: Brainwashed and/or Groomed. The tertiary categories selected are: Rape and sexual assault/harassment, Pattern of targeting Hindus. In our database, we have not added incidents where women have converted to another religion of their free will and no allegations of forced/involuntary conversion have been made. However, there are certain cases of conversion where the consent itself is a result of the brainwashing or grooming of a minor by the non-Hindu perpetrator trying to victimise a woman for her Hindu religious identity. The phenomenon of grooming points to non-Hindu perpetrators identifying their Hindu victims’ vulnerabilities and exploiting them over months and sometimes years, to extract the supposed ‘consent’ in order to convert their religion. In most cases of grooming, the victims are minors or the grooming started when the victim was a minor. In other cases of grooming, the non-Hindu perpetrator brainwashes and grooms a minor victim to extract their trust and then proceeds to rape them repeatedly with the intent of converting them to their faith. It is pertinent to understand here that when the victim is a minor, the ‘consent’ to convert or enter into a romantic relationship with an adult itself is redundant – addressed by POCSO. While every case of conversion of a minor and incidents of establishing a physical relationship with a minor by an adult is a crime, for the purpose of this database, a case would be considered a hate crime only if there is a distinct religious angle to the grooming. For example, in the UK, if a Hindu minor is targeted by Pakistani grooming gangs, it would be considered a hate crime because the victims are specifically targeted owing to their non-Muslim religious identity with the perpetrators being Muslim. In other cases, if a Hindu minor is brainwashed into entering a physical relationship with the non-Hindu adult perpetrator and the family alleges grooming/brainwashing of the minor to convert her religion, it would form a part of this database. If the victim is a Hindu adult, the case would form a part of this database only if the victim herself says that she was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. However, if the victim is deceased (murdered or otherwise), the case would form a part of this database if her family/friends provided testimony that the victim was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. Since these crimes have a distinct religious angle where the victim is being targeted owing to her Hindu religious identity, these cases are considered a hate crime. The other subcategory selected 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. This case was a clear example of a religiously driven hate crime, as Hindu women were religiously profiled, lured into relationships, sexually exploited under the pretext of marriage and pressured to convert to Islam by the Muslim perpetrator, Mohammad Adil. The fact that the victims were Hindu women who were targeted in a similar manner demonstrated a clear pattern of religiously selective exploitation. They were specifically targeted on the basis of their religious identity, lured into relationships and subsequently sexually exploited under the pretext of marriage. This repeated pattern indicated that the perpetrator was not targeting women indiscriminately for sexual gratification; rather, Hindu women were being singled out for exploitation. Their religious identity was therefore a defining factor in the targeting. By exploiting these women after selectively approaching them on the basis of their faith, the perpetrator showed a complete disregard for their dignity, religious identity, personal autonomy and bodily autonomy. The conduct treated Hindu women as targets whose consent, dignity and freedom of choice could be disregarded for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The repeated targeting of Hindu women in this manner demonstrated that the abuse was not merely sexual in nature but also carried a distinct religious dimension, making it an instance of religiously motivated targeting. The other significant religious marker in this case was the pressure exerted on the Hindu victims to convert to Islam. Maviya, one of the Hindu nurses targeted by Mohammad Adil, was pressured to abandon her Hindu faith and convert to Islam in connection with the promise of marriage. This was not merely an attempt to influence her personal religious choices; it amounted to religious coercion because her willingness to enter a relationship and marry was made conditional upon giving up her existing faith. Such pressure directly undermined her freedom of conscience and religion by seeking to replace a religious identity she had the right to retain with one she was being pressured to adopt. Forcing or pressuring a Hindu woman to renounce Hinduism in this manner disregards her religious autonomy and dignity and treats her faith as an obstacle to be eliminated rather than a personal belief entitled to respect and protection. It also revealed a deliberate disregard for her Hindu identity and her right to practise her religion without intimidation or coercion. The conversion-related pressure therefore added a distinct religious dimension to the sexual exploitation: the victim was not only targeted and exploited but was also pressured to abandon the faith that formed part of her identity. When considered alongside the repeated targeting of Hindu women, this conduct demonstrated religious hostility and a mindset that showed disdain for their Hindu identity. Taken together, the religious profiling, sexual exploitation and pressure to convert to Islam established the religiously motivated character of the targeting and made this a clear example of a religiously driven hate crime. Furthermore, the perpetrator's association with an organised conversion network demonstrated that the targeting of Hindu women was not an isolated occurrence but part of a wider, coordinated effort. The network, which involved other Muslim doctors and professionals, engaged with Hindu female resident doctors and promoted hardline Islamic ideology among them. Its activities pointed to a premeditated pattern of targeting Hindu women and pressuring them to abandon their faith and embrace Islam through relationships, sexual exploitation, manipulation and intimidation. This organised approach exposed a wider conversion agenda in which Hindu women were targeted on account of their religious identity, with no regard for their freedom to retain their faith. The systematic use of coercion to undermine Hindu religious identity reflected deep-seated hostility towards Hinduism and demonstrated how Islamic radicalism manifests through organised efforts to influence and compel religious conversion. The Hindu victims Maviya and Meenakshi were therefore not the only targets but part of a wider nexus seeking to violate the religious autonomy of Hindu women, making this a clear instance of organised, religiously motivated hostility towards Hindus. The ideological associations uncovered during the investigation further exposed the anti-Hindu orientation of the network. The Special Task Force report referred to the propagation of the ideology of Islamic extremist preacher Zakir Naik, whose organisation, the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), was declared an unlawful association by the Government of India under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, on grounds that included promoting religious hatred, encouraging forcible conversions to Islam and making derogatory statements against Hindus and Hindu deities. The investigation also brought to light the conversion racket's association with Dr Shaheen Saeed, who was one of the perpetrators of the November 2025 Red Fort bombing in Delhi. These ideological influences and associations, considered alongside the network’s organised efforts to target Hindu women and coerce their conversion, revealed a deeply hostile attitude towards Hinduism and demonstrated that the perpetrators’ conduct was rooted in more than personal exploitation: it was accompanied by an ideological drive to undermine Hindu religious identity and impose Islam through coercion, making this an example of a religiously driven offence. Overall, since this incident met several parameters of a hate crime, it was added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the victim's ordeal began, rather than when the incident was reported by the media. In the present case, media reports did not specify the exact date on which the victims' ordeal began. However, one of the victims, Dr Devatri Mitra, filed a complaint against the perpetrator in December 2025, while the wider incident came to light following the Uttar Pradesh STF inquiry, whose findings were made public on 25 October 2026. In the absence of an exact date, an indicative incident date of 25 December 2025 has been selected by taking into consideration these two reference points. This date has been recorded for documentation purposes only and does not represent a confirmed date on which the incident began. Although the media reports and STF inquiry established that multiple Hindu women were targeted in this case, only two victims, Meenakshi Pandey and Maviya, were specifically identified by name. Therefore, an indicative victim count of two has been recorded for documentation purposes only. This is a conservative count based on the victims explicitly identified in the available information and does not represent the total number of women targeted in the incident.