Hindu woman lured into relationship, coerced to convert to Islam for marriage by Muslim man; threatened to be cut into piece if refused

Case ID : 45f4ffd | Location : Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 5 December, 2023

Case ID : 45f4ffd

Bangalore Urban, Karnataka, India

5 December, 2023

Hindu woman lured into relationship, coerced to convert to Islam for marriage by Muslim man; threatened to be cut into piece if refused

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Forced conversion before marriage

Blackmailed to convert

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Case Summary

A Hindu woman was lured into a relationship, sexually exploited and pressured for conversion by a Muslim man in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The victim stated that she met Usman through friends about two years earlier. She said she had initially refused a relationship because of religious differences, but Usman threatened to end his life and reassured her that marriage would not require conversion to Islam. Trusting this, she eventually agreed and lived with him for around eighteen months in a live-in relationship. Soon enough, Usman’s behaviour changed when marriage was discussed. He began pressuring her to convert, assaulted her, and threatened to kill her. She reported that he obtained ₹12.20 lakh from her and forcefully pawned her jewellery. When she asked him to speak to her family about marriage, he threatened to dismember her into 32 pieces, like Shraddha Walkar was killed by her live-in partner Aaftab Amin Poonawalla in May 2022 in Delhi. This left her deeply shaken. She said she later learned that he used drugs. The accused also used the victim’s private photographs for blackmail and subjected her to sexual abuse. Due to continuous mental and physical abuse, the victim attempted suicide twice. The survivor stated that she had filed a complaint against Usman at the Suddaguntepalya police station in March 2025. But the police did not treat her complaint with seriousness, and did not prepare the chargesheet properly. Even after the case was formally registered, the police delayed taking further steps. Because of this, she had to repeatedly visit various police stations and senior officials to seek justice.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The first primary category selected in this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The first subcategory selected under this 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 to her religion and give up her religious identity. In both 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 pressurising 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 second subcategory selected under this is: Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert to her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim; however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual, and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence, etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The third subcategory selected under this 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 pressurising 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. This case has been added to the tracker because the sequence of events shows a clear pattern in which the Hindu woman was targeted through the deliberate use of emotional manipulation and falsehood. The Hindu victim was deceived into a relationship and sexually exploited under the pretext of marriage. The Muslim man’s threat of suicide and claim that the religious differences won't matter in the relationship was not a sincere commitment but a purposeful tactic to enter a relationship that would not have begun due to his Islamic identity. The emotional blackmail and false promise shaped the entire interaction, as the trust the Hindu woman placed in him was built on this pretence. This establishes that the deception was not personal in isolation but structured around her religious identity. The inclusion is also justified because the pressure to convert emerged once emotional dependence and physical vulnerability had been created. The woman stated that the demand to accept Islam was made repeatedly and with explicit threats. This pressure came in the form of an ultimatum that marriage would only be possible if she abandoned her Hindu faith, and if she resisted, she would be dismembered. The gruesome threat to her safety, if she refused, further demonstrates that the religious element was not incidental but central to the coercion. The violence she reported upon refusing to convert strengthens this link and places the case within the scope of hate crimes, where the religious identity of the victim is the point of attack. The victim was subjected to severe blackmail by the accused using her private photographs. The act was intended specifically to break her spirit and force her compliance with his demands for sexual exploitation and forced conversion, both motivated by anti-Hindu hatred. This aggravates the severity of the crime, underscoring its nature as a religiously motivated offence. Usman coerced the victim into converting to Islam for marriage. This demonstrates that the accused's deception and exploitation were deliberate and calculated, aimed at fulfilling his underlying objective of religious conversion. Such actions violated the woman’s fundamental right to practise her own faith and constituted a clear attempt to strip her of her Hindu identity. Conversion that arises not from genuine desire but from coercion, deception and pressure is invalid; it is an aggressive attack on the victim's Hindu faith, driven by anti-Hindu animosity. This case, therefore, amounts to a clear instance of targeted exploitation and coercion of a Hindu woman for forced religious conversion, making it a distinctly religiously motivated crime. Given that this case meets several parameters defining an anti-Hindu hate crime targeting a Hindu woman for her faith, it is being documented in the Hate Crime Database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported. Media reports state that the victim’s ordeal began when she met the accused two years ago. Though no exact date or month is provided. To document this case, we have used an indicative date: 5th December 2023, calculated 2 years before the date of reporting, as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering.