Hindu woman ends life after Muslim man’s relentless pressure for marriage and religious conversion
Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, India 
28 October, 2025
Case Summary
A Hindu woman committed suicide in Harsud town of Khandwa district, Madhya Pradesh, after being relentlessly harassed and pressured by a Muslim man to marry him and convert to his religion. The incident led to widespread outrage in the area. According to reports, the woman consumed pesticide at her home and was immediately taken to the hospital by her family, but she died during treatment due to her critical condition. Her family stated that the man, identified as Arbaaz, had been blackmailing her with obscene photos and videos to force her into marriage and religious conversion. They further stated that when they objected to his actions, he physically assaulted her, causing her extreme mental distress that drove her to take her own life. Following the incident, members of several Hindu organisations gathered at the Harsud police station, demanding strict action. The police registered a case against Arbaaz under multiple sections, including abetment to suicide, the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, and the SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Preliminary investigations revealed that Arbaaz had been harassing the woman since her engagement and had even tried to break it off by contacting her fiancé’s family. Senior police officials reached the spot to assess the situation, and a search operation has been launched to arrest the accused.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
The primary category in this case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The first subcategory under this is: Suicide after pressure to convert. When there is pressure, threat or coercion employed upon the Hindu victim to convert to a different religion, in several cases, owing to the humiliation or pressure/threat, the victim commits suicide. In such cases, the pressure/threat/intimidation/coercion/violence itself is driven by animosity towards the victim’s Hindu faith. The pressure/threat that is employed leads to the Hindu victim taking his own life. Since the victim’s faith is at the heart of the pressure to convert and the ensuing suicide by the victim, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. Another subcategory under this is: Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats, in this case, find their root on discriminatory grounds which has the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion, forceful circumcision etc. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. This case has been included in the Hinduphobia Tracker because it represents one of the most tragic and direct manifestations of predatory proselytisation — where coercion, intimidation, and exploitation of personal vulnerability are used to force a Hindu victim into religious conversion. The victim, a Hindu woman from Harsud, was relentlessly harassed by a Muslim man, Arbaaz, who sought to compel her into marriage and conversion to Islam. His actions were not merely personal or emotional in nature but were deeply rooted in religious hostility, aimed at undermining her freedom of belief and identity as a Hindu woman. The continuous pressure and humiliation inflicted upon her because of her refusal to renounce her faith drove her to suicide, making this not just a case of abetment to suicide but an act of religiously motivated persecution. The foundation of this hate crime lies in the deliberate targeting of the victim’s faith. The harassment was not incidental; it was structured around the intent to erase her Hindu identity through coercion, emotional blackmail, and psychological torment. The use of obscene photos and videos as tools of control reflects a methodical form of intimidation and harassment designed to break her resistance and force submission. The demand for religious conversion as a precondition for marriage demonstrates that the perpetrator’s objective was not affection or companionship but religious domination. When a person is systematically pressured to abandon her faith under threat, humiliation, and exploitation, it ceases to be a private matter and becomes an assault on her spiritual and cultural autonomy. The pressure to convert was not limited to private persuasion but extended into acts of humiliation and violence. When her family opposed Arbaaz’s advances, he reportedly resorted to physical assault, further demonstrating that his actions were coercive and grounded in aggression. This escalation from psychological manipulation to physical violence is characteristic of religiously motivated hate crimes, where the perpetrator perceives the victim’s faith as something that must be subdued or conquered. The harassment continued despite her engagement to another man, and Arbaaz’s attempt to sabotage that engagement by contacting her fiancé’s family underscores his obsessive drive to ensure that she could not live freely within her own faith and community. The fact that the victim was driven to suicide highlights the destructive impact of such targeted religious persecution. Suicide in such cases is not an act of individual despair alone but a direct consequence of systemic coercion rooted in hatred for the victim’s religion. When a Hindu woman feels so trapped and humiliated by relentless pressure to abandon her faith that death appears as the only escape, the act becomes a reflection of religious oppression rather than personal tragedy. The perpetrator’s conduct, sustained over time, exploitative in nature, and religiously motivated, constitutes a deliberate campaign of psychological violence against her as a Hindu. The invocation of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act in this case is particularly significant. It recognises that the victim’s religious identity was central to the harassment she endured. The use of legal provisions such as abetment to suicide and the SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act further confirms that the crime was multifaceted, involving not just gendered and sexual exploitation but also caste and religious discrimination. These combined factors amplify the gravity of the crime as an attack on her dignity, autonomy, and identity. This case has been documented in the Hinduphobia Tracker to underline how coercion for conversion often manifests through emotional exploitation, sexual blackmail, and psychological domination, culminating in irreversible outcomes like suicide. It also serves as a record of how religious hate can operate through private acts of cruelty that, while seemingly interpersonal, are in fact ideological in motive and communal in consequence. By pressuring a Hindu woman to renounce her faith under threat of exposure and humiliation, Arbaaz enacted a personal form of religious violence that mirrors the broader systemic pattern of predatory proselytisation across the country. His intent to destroy the victim’s spiritual independence and his use of intimidation to achieve that end qualify this act as a hate crime against Hindus. The victim’s death was the final outcome of sustained religious persecution — a chilling example of how coercive conversion attempts can culminate in tragedy when the victim’s dignity and faith are systematically assaulted. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case have specified the exact date on which the victim committed suicide. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the incident was reported in the media.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
1
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 1
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 1
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
