Dalit Hindu woman deceived by Muslim man posing as Hindu, raped, and forced into conversion and marriage

Case ID : 90a0aa2 | Location : Susner, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 15 March, 2025

Case ID : 90a0aa2

Susner, Madhya Pradesh, India

15 March, 2025

Dalit Hindu woman deceived by Muslim man posing as Hindu, raped, and forced into conversion and marriage

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Rape for refusal to convert

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Case Summary

In Susner, Agar Malwa district of Madhya Pradesh, a 22-year-old Dalit Hindu woman was deceived into a relationship by a Muslim man posing as a Hindu. He raped her multiple times and forced her to convert to Islam and marry him. According to media reports, the victim, a mother of two children, was experiencing significant conflict and bitterness in her marriage. During this time, she was deceived into a relationship by a Muslim man who pretended to be Hindu. The accused, a resident of Bakani in Rajasthan, had been working for a private company on a pipeline project in Agar Malwa district and lived in a rented house near the victim's home. During this period, he managed to obtain her mobile number and manipulated her into a relationship. The victim stated that the accused raped her repeatedly for many days. He pressured her to convert to Islam and marry him. He was attempting to forcibly take her away to get married, but the girl's family caught him at the Modi intersection in Susner. The police were informed and arrived at the scene. They arrested the accused and a case was registered against him for rape, pressuring the victim to convert to Islam, and under the SC-ST Act.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the prime category- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within this, the first sub-category selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu and the tertiary category selected under this is- Name changed. 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. The second sub-category under which the case has been placed is- Forced conversion before marriage and the tertiary category selected within this- Forced to do Nikah. 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. The relationship in such cases is mostly 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. In such cases, 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 pressurizing 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 third sub-category selected is- Raped for refusal to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces pressure/threats/violence to convert and change her religious identity 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 pressuring the Hindu woman to convert. In some of these cases, the association could be non-consensual as well or, the religious identity of the non-Muslim man could be previously unknown to the Hindu victim. As the case may be, in such cases, the non-Hindu man forces himself sexually on the Hindu woman when she refuses his advances and pressures to convert her religion. The rape of the woman is often seen as either a punishment for the woman refusing to convert. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. This incident, where a Muslim youth trapped a Hindu woman by posing as a Hindu and later forced her to convert to Islam, is a religiously motivated hate crime for several reasons. First, the perpetrator's deliberate deception by assuming a false identity as a Hindu reflects a calculated attempt to exploit the woman's religious background. By posing as someone who shares her faith, he manipulated her trust and violated her ability to make informed decisions about her relationships. This deception is not just a personal betrayal but a targeted attack on her religious identity, as the woman's trust was built on the belief that she was interacting with someone from her own religious community. Second, the forced conversion to Islam and pressure to perform Nikah underscores the religious dimension of the crime. The fact that the woman was pressured to abandon her faith and adopt another religion against her will is a clear violation of her religious freedom. Conversion through coercion and harassment is a severe infringement on her rights and autonomy. The use of force or manipulation to change someone's religion is a manifestation of religious intolerance and an attempt to erase the victim's original cultural and religious identity. Further, she was subjected to physical and sexual assault, adding an additional layer of psychological manipulation to coerce her into converting to Islam. The intent to strip her of her religious identity through force and deception shows religious animosity, making this a hate crime. It highlights a broader pattern where vulnerable individuals are targeted based on their religion, with the aim of coercing them into abandoning their faith through intimidation and violence.