Hindu youth lured into a relationship, pressured for religious conversion and forcibly circumcised by Muslim woman and her family.

Case ID : 8da18b4 | Location : Mau, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 13 November, 2022

Case ID : 8da18b4

Mau, Uttar Pradesh, India

13 November, 2022

Hindu youth lured into a relationship, pressured for religious conversion and forcibly circumcised by Muslim woman and her family.

Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women

Forced to convert before marriage

Forced circumcision

Forced to follow non-Hindu practises

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Attack not resulting in death

Attacked for opposing radicals or trying to save victim

Case Summary

In Mau city, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu youth named Vishal Singh was lured into a relationship, pressured for religious conversion and forcibly circumcised by a Muslim woman named Sunaina Parveen and her family. According to reports, the victim, who worked at a dental clinic at Azamgarh Mod, came into contact with the Muslim woman, Sunaina Parveen, in 2022. The Muslim woman trapped the victim in a love relationship and took him to her village in Ambedkar Nagar, where he was mentally and physically tortured. Subsequently, he was taken to Assam, Sunaina's maternal grandmother's home, where he was pressured to convert to Islam and abandon his faith. During this time, her father, Firoz Ahmed, along with relatives Raju Sheikh, Sameer Sheikh and Maulana Salman, forcibly converted the victim to Islam, circumcised him, and made him undergo nikah, marriage according to Islamic customs. He was also forced to offer namaz in a mosque, all of which was recorded on video. Fed up with the harassment, the victim managed to flee and returned to his home in Mau, narrating the entire ordeal to his family. His family repeatedly approached the police against Sunaina and her family; however, no concrete action was taken. On 5 August 2025, at 4:40 p.m., Raju Sheikh, Sameer Sheikh, Firoz Ahmed, Tahir, Maulana Salman, Neha Sheikh, and Sunaina Parveen, accompanied by female police officers from the Mau police station, entered the victim's home. They verbally abused him and threatened to kill him, while brandishing a knife, in front of the police. When neighbours protested, the police took money and promised to settle the matter. The family later approached the court due to inaction from the police. Following the court’s orders, a case was registered against Sunaina Parveen, Raju Sheikh, Sameer Sheikh, Firoz Ahmed, Tahir, Maulana Salman and Neha Sheikh. The Superintendent of Police formed a special team to investigate the case and arrest the perpetrators. Police stated that the investigation was ongoing and that strict legal action would follow against everyone responsible.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is being added to the tracker under the primary category- Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women. Within this, the subcategory selected is- Forced to convert before marriage. The tertiary categories selected within this are- Forced circumcision and Forced to follow non-Hindu practices. In such cases, a non-Hindu woman is in a relationship with a Hindu man when the force/pressure against the Hindu man to convert his religion begins to manifest. The relationship in such cases is mostly consensual and the religious identity of the perpetrator is known to the Hindu man in the relationship, however, at some point during the relationship, the non-Hindu woman starts to force/pressure the victim to convert his religion and give up his Hindu identity. In such cases, the methods used to force/pressure the victim to convert his religion often revolve around forcing/pressurizing the man to involuntarily consume beef, forced circumcision, forcing/pressurizing to read the Kalma or even pressurizing the victim to do ‘Nikah’, which is marriage under Islamic law, with a prerequisite being conversion to Islam. Cases where the Hindu man 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 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. The second category selected here is- Attack not resulting in death, and within this, the subcategory selected 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 tracker because the Hindu victim was lured into a relationship, pressured for religious conversion, and forcibly circumcised by the Muslim woman and her family. This is a clear example of a hate crime committed against a Hindu man solely because of his religious identity. The accused, Sunaina, specifically trapped the victim in a love affair with the intention of converting him. She didn’t want a genuine relationship with the victim; instead, this relationship was a trap, which was later weaponised to strip the victim of his Hindu identity. He was mentally and physically tortured and forcibly converted to Islam against his will. Such coercion revealed a deep hostility on the part of the perpetrators towards the Hindu victim because of his faith. The victim was mentally and physically tortured for over two years while in Ambedkar Nagar, Mau. In such cases, violence serves a dual purpose of physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention is to break the victim down emotionally, physically, and spiritually so that he can be converted. It was intended to crush his resolve before he was taken to Assam and forcibly converted. This was not random violence; it was systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. Subsequently, the victim was taken to Assam, where he was forcibly converted to Islam and made to undergo nikah by the Muslim perpetrators. Forcing a Hindu individual to discard his religious faith and embrace another is a direct attack on his religious identity and dignity. It is not a matter of personal choice; it is coercion rooted in hostility towards the victim's Hindu identity. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act is not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. The victim was also circumcised by the Muslim perpetrators, forcibly severing him from his religious and cultural roots. Circumcision, being irreversible, will remain with him forever, an act of permanent mutilation that reflects the fanatical drive of the perpetrators. For them, it was about permanently stamping the victim with a religious identity marker against his will. This was not only an abuse but also an assertion of religious dominance carried out through force and violence. The victim was denied any choice, stripped of his Hindu identity, and made to carry the bodily mark of religious conversion for life. Similarly, forcing him to perform namaz was another instance of exposing him to Islamic practices, making his conversion permanent. This again clearly demonstrates the religiously motivated nature of the crime. Furthermore, when the victim managed to escape and filed a police complaint, the Muslim perpetrators came to his house, verbally abused him, and threatened to kill him. Their response showed that the purpose was not merely to convert him but to ensure he remained within the Islamic fold under their control. His refusal to submit to continued religious coercion became the very trigger for the confrontation, demonstrating that the violence and intimidation were rooted in religious hostility. These actions by the Muslim perpetrators 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 he met the accused in 2022. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date—14 November 2022—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of his suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 14 November 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.