Hindu woman deceived into marrying Muslim man at temple, pressured to convert after discovering his identity, attacked with scissors upon refusal

Case ID : 30ab4b2 | Location : Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 10 November, 2021

Case ID : 30ab4b2

Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

10 November, 2021

Hindu woman deceived into marrying Muslim man at temple, pressured to convert after discovering his identity, attacked with scissors upon refusal

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Marries as per Hindu rituals

Forced conversion after marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Case Summary

A Hindu woman named Ruby from Rawatpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, was deceived into a relationship and then forced to convert to Islam by a Muslim man identified as Mohammad Kaleem, a resident of Sujatganj, Kanpur. The accused had concealed his religious identity to marry her as per Hindu customs in a temple. Five years into the marriage, the victim discovered his real identity and confronted him. The accused and his family thereafter pressured her to convert to Islam and, upon refusal, assaulted her. According to reports, the couple married in 2021. The accused had concealed his religious identity and presented himself as a Hindu. He married the victim in a temple. Following the marriage, he took her to Noida, where they lived together. Initially, their relationship was normal; however, after some time, Kaleem began beating and physically abusing her. He also pressured her to convert to Islam. The victim further stated that the accused repeatedly demanded money from her on several other occasions. On 2 September 2026, following the birth of their son, he took Rs 30,000 from her in the child's name. He also took another Rs 20,000 on the pretext that his mother was unwell, and he required the amount for her treatment. On 10th November 2026, Kaleem brought the victim from Noida to Kanpur, promising to live with his parents and marry her. However, upon arriving in Sujatganj, she learned that Kaleem was to marry another woman, Shabnam, on November 29th. When she protested, Kaleem and his family assaulted her, They also pressured her to convert to Islam. When she refused, the assault continued, during which the accused attacked her neck with a pair of scissors, leaving her injured and bleeding. The victim managed to escape and reach the police station. Before she escaped, the accused and his family members also threatened to kill her and her family. Following the victim's complaint, police registered a case against five people, including the accused, his father Salim, mother Jahanara, sister Nazreen, and brother Aleem. Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) Shiva Singh said police had registered a case, an investigation was underway, and efforts were underway to trace the absconding accused.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This incident has been added to the tracker under the primary category Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within this, the selected subcategory is: Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary category is: Marries as per Hindu rituals. 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 mala fide 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 subcategory selected in this case is forced conversion after marriage. The tertiary category is: Forced to do Nikah. In such cases, a non-Hindu man marries a Hindu woman, and the force/pressure to convert to any Abrahamic faith, like Islam, begins after marriage. 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. The marriage could be under the Special Marriages Act, where neither party is 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 man starts to pressure the woman to convert to his religion after marriage. The second is when the woman marries the man, pretending to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert to his religion and give up her religious identity. In both situations, there is application of force by the perpetrator, including the denial of the woman’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the woman is forced/pressured to convert include force-feeding beef, being forced to read the Kalma, being forced to wear a hijab, being forced to undergo Halala, etc. There are several instances where, after marriage, the woman 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. Another sub-category for this case 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 pressuring 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 part of the hate crime, even though it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. This incident exhibits multiple religious markers that clearly establish it as a religiously motivated crime specifically targeting a Hindu woman. The accused concealed his Muslim identity to marry a Hindu woman through Hindu traditions and rituals and subsequently subjected her to sustained pressure to abandon her Hindu faith and convert to Islam. The religious deception at the beginning of the relationship and the subsequent insistence on conversion established a direct connection between the victim's Hindu identity and the coercion she endured. Her faith was not incidental to the abuse; it was the very identity the accused sought to make her relinquish. Primarily, concealing his religious identity before entering into marriage was significant because it deprived the victim of the opportunity to make an informed decision about a relationship involving fundamental religious differences. If the accused had genuinely intended to build a relationship with the victim, there was no reason to conceal his religious identity from her. The very fact that he presented himself as a Hindu while being Muslim established that the deception was deliberate and intended to make the victim believe that he shared her religious identity. The perpetrator’s calculated act to conceal this essential aspect of his identity also demonstrated his awareness that the victim's knowledge of his actual religion would have affected her decision to enter into the relationship. Second, he married the woman as per Hindu rituals in a Hindu temple. This act itself demonstrates a clear bias and malicious intent towards the victim’s religion. By hiding his true identity, he manipulated her trust and targeted her under false pretences, indicating a premeditated effort to exploit the woman based on her religious background. Additionally, the marriage conducted according to Hindu rituals in a Hindu temple legitimised the relationship in the eyes of the woman and the wider Hindu community. This constituted a direct violation of her right to informed consent regarding whom she chose to marry, as well as an infringement upon her religious beliefs. Another important aspect is the subsequent pressure to convert to Islam. This makes the religious objective of the coercion more explicit. The victim's Hindu identity was treated as something she was expected to abandon to continue the marital relationship. Such pressure directly attacked her freedom of conscience and her right to retain her inherited faith. For a Hindu woman, being pressured to renounce her religion also meant being forced to distance herself from the beliefs, traditions, worship, and cultural practices that formed an integral part of her identity. The insistence on an Islamic nikah further reinforced the demand that she replace her Hindu religious identity with an Islamic marital identity. The circumstances also demonstrated how religious coercion was accompanied by physical violence and intimidation. The assault following her refusal to convert and her objection to the proposed second marriage intensified the pressure on her to submit. Such violence was particularly serious because it placed the victim's physical safety against her refusal to surrender her religious identity. The threats against her and her family further added to the intimidation. Thus, the violence and threats were not random. It is religiously motivated coercion, aimed at eroding the victim’s identity and forcing conformity through fear. Such acts are inherently rooted in hate, not just toward the individual, but toward the faith she represents. This dynamic is what makes the incident not just a case of personal violence, but a hate crime with clear religious motives. It is also important to address a question that often arises in such cases: if the woman discovered that the accused had concealed his religious identity, why did she remain in the relationship for several years? Such questions overlook the realities faced by many women in abusive or deceptive marriages. Leaving 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 hope the situation will improve or fear that leaving will expose them and their children to even greater hardship. A victim's staying 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. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the victim's ordeal began, rather than when the incident was reported in the media. In the present case, the media reports mentioned only that the victim's ordeal began in 2021 and did not specify the exact date. Therefore, the date of the case has been recorded as 11 November 2021, derived by aligning the known year with the date of the corresponding media report (11 November 2026). This date has been recorded for documentation purposes only.