Case Summary

A Hindu man was deceived and trapped into a marriage with a Muslim woman in Hasanpur, Amroha, Uttar Pradesh. The victim’s father, Sompal Singh of Paurara village, said that due to poverty his son Rajkumar was unable to find a bride. A villager named Manveer offered to arrange a marriage, saying the girl’s parents were not alive, so no dowry would be needed. Sompal paid seventy thousand rupees for the marriage expenses, and on 5 June 2025, Rajkumar was married to a woman introduced as Asha. After the marriage, the family discovered that the woman’s real name was not Asha, but Shaheen Khatoon, daughter of Mohammad Shahnawaz, and she was from Minapur in Katihar district of Bihar. When Sompal complained, the mediator Manveer came with the woman’s so called sister Pooja and brother in law Vinod on the morning of 27 July 2025, took all the gold and silver jewellery and fifteen thousand rupees cash, and also took Shaheen with them. When Sompal and Rajkumar objected, they were assaulted. Sompal said that when police detained Vinod, instead of taking action, they threatened to implicate Rajkumar in a rape case to silence the matter. Since police did not act, Sompal approached the court. After the court’s order, a case was registered against the accused for cheating and fraud. The FIR includes Vinod, Pooja, Manveer, and Shaheen Khatoon. Police sources stated that this was a gang that traps men by promising marriage. Shaheen is used as the bride, and when they target men of another religion, she is presented as a Hindu under a false name. After a few days of marriage, the gang escapes with jewellery and money. Sompal also said that after cheating his son, the gang conducted another similar fake marriage on 29 July 2025 with a person from the Tyagi community in Marora.

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Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category in this case is: Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women. The secondary category under this is: Brainwashed and/or groomed. In our database, we have not added incidents where men have converted to another religion of their free will and no allegations of forced/involuntary conversion have been made. However, there are certain cases of conversion where the consent itself is a result of the brainwashing or grooming of a minor by the non-Hindu perpetrator trying to victimise a man for his Hindu religious identity. The phenomenon of grooming points to non-Hindu perpetrators identifying their Hindu victims’ vulnerabilities and exploiting them over months and sometimes years, to extract the supposed ‘consent’ in order to convert their religion. In most cases of grooming, the victims are minors or the grooming started when the victim was a minor. In other cases of grooming, the non-Hindu perpetrator brainwashes and grooms a minor victim to extract their trust and then proceeds to rape them repeatedly with the intent of converting them to their faith. It is pertinent to understand here that when the victim is a minor, the ‘consent’ to convert or enter into a romantic relationship with an adult itself is redundant – addressed by POCSO. While every case of conversion of a minor and incident of establishing a physical relationship with a minor by an adult is a crime, for the purpose of this database, a case would be considered a hate crime only if there is a distinct religious angle to the grooming. For example, in the UK, if a Hindu minor is targeted by Pakistani grooming gangs, it would be considered a hate crime because the victims are specifically targeted owing to their non-Muslim religious identity with the perpetrators being Muslim. In other cases, if a Hindu minor is brainwashed into entering a physical relationship with the non-Hindu adult perpetrator and the family alleges grooming/brainwashing of the minor to convert her religion, it would form a part of this database. If the victim is a Hindu adult, the case would form a part of this database only if the victim himself says that he was brainwashed/groomed to convert his religion. However, if the victim is deceased (murdered or otherwise), the case would form a part of this database if his family/friends provided testimony that the victim was brainwashed/groomed to convert his religion. Since these crimes have a distinct religious angle where the victim is being targeted owing to his Hindu religious identity, these cases are considered hate crimes. Another primary category in this case is: Attack not resulting in death. The subcategory under this is: Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim. In several cases, Hindus are attacked for opposing religiously motivated crimes being committed against a fellow Hindu or simply for voicing an opinion opposing radical elements, who either have in the past or continue to persecute Hindus. In such cases, the initial attack against the victim, against which the Hindu was trying to defend the victim, would also need to be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime. Since the initial crime itself was religiously motivated and the subsequent crime of attempting to save the victim or speaking against the radical elements ends up inviting a violent attack, it would also be classified as a religiously motivated hate crime under this category. This case has been added to the Hinduphobia Tracker because the core harm in this incident is not a simple case of matrimonial fraud or cheating. The central operative mechanism here is the deliberate concealment of the perpetrator’s religious identity in order to enter the Hindu victim’s household and then strip the family of wealth, safety and dignity. The use of a Hindu name, presentation as a Hindu, and the utilisation of Hindu social cues to secure acceptance into a Hindu marriage demonstrates that the deception itself was rooted in the Hindu identity of the victim, and that the faith identity of the victim was central to why this target was appropriate and selected. This is why this falls squarely within Hinduphobia-driven predatory patterns. The main perpetrator, a Muslim woman, adopted a Hindu identity, took a Hindu name, presented herself as a Hindu daughter from a Hindu context, and led the Hindu family to believe they were marrying within their faith. Religion is not incidental in Indian matrimonial structures. Marriage in India is still religion-anchored and religion-dependent in both law and culture. Who one marries, and under what religious identity one takes vows, determines not merely a private relationship, but the legal, ritual and kinship ecosystem into which that person is absorbed. Inserting a non-Hindu into a Hindu marriage by deception is therefore not only a personal fraud. It is a direct religious intrusion based on exploiting Hindu marriage frameworks. The fact that the perpetrators targeted a Hindu family that was financially constrained, and specifically positioned the “bride” as a no-dowry option because “parents are dead” shows the classic exploitation of socio-economic vulnerability in targeted Hindu households. The marriage was not undertaken for a personal relational outcome but as a pre-designed operation to enter a Hindu home and extract wealth. The Muslim woman’s false Hindu identity was the tool for entry. The Hindu religious identity of the victim household was the precondition that made this tool necessary. Religious identity therefore is not accidental here. It is the operative variable. The post-marriage coercion is critical too. When the Hindu family uncovered her real Muslim identity and protested, they were assaulted and threatened. This escalation from covert religious deception to overt aggression is typical in cases where the perpetrators believe they can weaponise fear to silence Hindu victims and avoid accountability. Threatening the Hindu victim with false rape allegations in order to force silence replicates patterns seen repeatedly in interfaith grooming cases where the Hindu victim, once trapped, is then controlled through weaponised fear. In this context, the religious identity of the Hindu victim was not incidental but operational. The offence took place through the instrumentality of religious concealment, and the harm was executed inside a Hindu marital framework. The cumulative evidence, as documented above, situates this incident within the pattern of Hinduphobia-driven exploitation recorded in the Tracker. Disclaimer: While this tracker acknowledges that four individuals have been named as accused in this case, the primary perpetrator was the Muslim woman who concealed her religious identity as a Hindu and entered the Hindu household through marriage. In addition, several non-Muslim individuals were also complicit in enabling, facilitating or supporting the coercion, intimidation and subsequent harm directed at the Hindu victim. However, for the purpose of categorical consistency and clarity in data representation, the perpetrator's religion has been recorded as Muslim, given that the central act of deception and targeting was initiated through the false Muslim-to-Hindu identity switch. This approach allows the case to be documented in a manner that reflects the core religious vector of the offence, without erasing the fact that other accused individuals from different backgrounds were also involved. Disclaimer: The date of the incident has been recorded as 5 June 2025, the day the marriage was conducted, since this was the foundational act of deception that initiated the offence.