Muslim man pretends to be Hindu, gangrapes Hindu victim along with brother, cousins, when real identity was found, assault her

Case ID : 8bc24c7 | Location : Prayagraj (Allahabad), Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 23 February, 2022

Case ID : 8bc24c7

Prayagraj (Allahabad), Uttar Pradesh, India

23 February, 2022

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Raped and/or murdered after Hindu woman finds out real identity

Name Changed

Case Summary

Lawyer Mohammed Alam trapped a Hindu woman of Bihar’s Balia, by posing as Anuj Pratap Singh aka Sonu. The girl was pursuing a nursing course in Prayagraj when Alam met her on Clubhouse app. Over time, he took the victim to Kashi Vishwanath temple, took care of her to win her trust and established sexual relations with her. When the victim became pregnant, Alam got her child aborted and the two did court marriage on February 24, 2022. When his real identity was revealed, the accused brutally thrashed her and locked her in a room. The victim was tortured, intoxicated and sexually assaulted by Mohammed Alam’s brother Noor Alam and the sons of his maternal uncle. On August 13, the victim escaped and lodged a complaint at Colonelganj police station against her husband and his brother. The victim, however, withdrew her statement when her husband allegedly threatened to kill her and her family. On October 11, the accused took her to a secluded place and fired two bullets at her in Kaushambi. Despite the injury, the victim called the police while hiding. Kokhraj Police booked Mohammed and Noor Alam on attempt to murder charges while the victim was admitted to Swaroop Rani Nehru Hospital. She claimed to receive more threats from Alam to have acid thrown on her face, be shot dead, and have her and her family's bodies dumped in the sewer. Seeking justice, the victim penned a letter to Prayagraj Police Commissioner Ramit Sharma.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

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. In this case, the Muslim man not only pretended to be a Hindu to trap the victim but also went to the temple to convince her to be in a relationship with him. When his real identity was found, he assaulted the victim and raped her along with his brother and cousins. There are multiple elements of hate crime in this case. The first element is the Muslim man pretending to be a Hindu which makes it apparent that the victim was targeted because of her religious identity. Second, the religiously motivated rape given that the perpetrator, his brothers gang-raped the victim as a punishment when she wanted to leave, after being duped by the misrepresentation of religious identity.