Hindu woman deceived into marriage and pressured to conversion by Muslim man posing as a Hindu; abused and assaulted upon refusal

Case ID : 30ab5c9 | Location : Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 13 November, 2015

Case ID : 30ab5c9

Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh, India

13 November, 2015

Hindu woman deceived into marriage and pressured to conversion by Muslim man posing as a Hindu; abused and assaulted 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

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Case Summary

In Sandila, Hardoi district, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman named Gudiya was deceived into marriage by a Muslim man who posed as a Hindu and married her at a Hindu temple. After she discovered his religious identity, Sonu and his family members pressured her to convert to Islam. When she resisted the demand, she was verbally abused and physically assaulted. They also threatened to kill her and her 10-year-old son. According to Gudiya, the accused, Sonu, a resident of Jajmau in Kanpur, had married her at a temple in 2015 after concealing his religious identity and presenting himself as a Hindu. Following their marriage, the couple had rented a room in Jajmau, where they had lived together for approximately 11 years and had a son, who was around 10 years old at the time of the incident. The victim stated that she had discovered approximately two years earlier, in 2024, that Sonu was a Muslim. He worked in Dubai and travelled frequently between Dubai and India. Subsequently, she learnt that Sonu was preparing to return to India on 5 November 2026 and marry another woman in Jamu village, located within the Sandila police station area of Hardoi district. When she objected to his plans, Sonu told her that she would have to convert to Islam if she wanted to continue living with him. Otherwise, he would divorce her and marry another woman. Gudiya further stated that her in-laws had refused to accept her and had also made conversion to Islam a condition for accepting her into the family. When she opposed the demand and threatened to approach the police, she was verbally abused and physically assaulted. Sonu and his family members also threatened to kill her and her 10-year-old son. Sandila Kotwal Anurag Singh stated that the police would investigate the matter and take appropriate action in accordance with the law.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected here is - Man pretends to be Hindu, with tertiary category being - 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 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 after marriage. 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 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 man starts to pressure the woman to convert her religion after marriage. 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 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, 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. 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 demonstrated a pattern of religious identity-based deception and coercive pressure aimed at compelling a Hindu woman to abandon her religious identity and adopt Islam. The central hate crime element arose from the circumstances surrounding the deception regarding marriage and the subsequent conditions for conversion imposed on the victim. Sonu had deliberately concealed his Muslim identity and presented himself as a Hindu when he married her at a temple. 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 conversion demand was particularly significant because it was presented as a condition for the continuation of the marriage. Sonu explicitly told the victim that she would have to embrace Islam if she wanted to continue living with him, while threatening to divorce her and marry another woman if she refused. His family members reinforced this pressure by refusing to accept her unless she converted. This went beyond a disagreement between spouses over marital arrangements. The victim was effectively placed in a position where retaining her existing religious identity meant risking the breakdown of her marriage and the loss of her place within her marital family. The use of an intimate relationship and the prospect of marital abandonment as leverage to secure religious conversion reflected coercive religious pressure rather than a freely made choice. The involvement of the in-laws further strengthened the communal dimension of the incident. The conversion demand was not presented as an isolated personal preference expressed by the husband; his family members also made the adoption of Islam a condition for accepting the victim. t constituted a direct form of religiously motivated coercion, as her Hindu identity became the basis for the conditions imposed on her continued marriage and acceptance by her marital family. By making the adoption of Islam a prerequisite for remaining with him and threatening to divorce her if she refused, the accused sought to use the victim's marital relationship as leverage to compel her to abandon her existing faith. 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, the violence directed at the victim after she resisted the accused’s demands further underscored the coercive nature of the incident. When she opposed the demand and threatened to approach the police, she was verbally abused and physically assaulted. Sonu and his family members also threatened to kill her and her 10-year-old son. The violence directed at the victim following her refusal to convert to Islam further underscored the religiously coercive nature of the incident. When she resisted the conversion demand and threatened to approach the police, she was verbally abused and physically assaulted, while Sonu and his family members threatened to kill her and her 10-year-old son. These acts of intimidation were intended to punish her resistance, silence her and compel her to submit to the conversion demand. The use of physical violence and death threats in response to her refusal to abandon her Hindu faith demonstrated that her religious identity was being treated as an obstacle that the accused and his family sought to overcome through coercion. The violence therefore formed part of the broader pattern of religious pressure and reinforced the targeted nature of the incident, as the victim was subjected to intimidation and physical harm after asserting her right to retain her faith. The assault therefore reflected hostility towards her Hindu faith and demonstrated the extreme coercive measures employed to force her religious abandonment. 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 married the accused in 2015. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date, 14 November 2015, as placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 14 November 2026, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.