Hindu woman befriended, forcibly converted to Islam, married to Muslim man posing as Hindu, victim and her family blackmailed
Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India 
2 April, 2025
Case Summary
In Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman named Manvi Sharma was befriended by a Muslim man named Meraj Ansari, who posed as a Hindu man named Rudra Sharma. Thereafter, the accused forcibly converted the Hindu woman and married her. Even an Islamic peer named Peer Mohammad Ahmad Khan alias Chhangur Baba was part of this crime. According to media reports, Manvi’s father was an alcoholic, which caused significant distress to both Manvi and her mother. During this period, she met a man named Meraj Ansari who was posing as Rudra Sharma. He told Manvi and her mother that by visiting and seeking blessings from Chhangur Baba, an Islamic peer, their problems related to alcoholism would be resolved. Following this, he persuaded Manvi to travel to Kanpur to seek blessings from Chhangur Baba. He took her there, where she was forcibly converted to Islam and married to Meraj. Chhangur Baba supported the Muslim accused Meraj and conducted the Nikah ceremony. Amidst this, the woman discovered Meraj's true identity. Following her marriage, the woman was sexually exploited and obscene videos of her were recorded by Meraj. She faced restrictions and torture after her marriage. Due to this, she escaped and returned to her parents’ home. However, Meraj followed her and showed her parents objectionable videos of himself and Manvi. He threatened to make the videos public if they did not agree to marry off their younger daughter, Manvi’s sister to him. This outraged Manvi’s parents and this led to a physical altercation between Meraj and the victim's father. During this altercation, Meraj was killed by Manvi's father, and his body was then thrown into the basement. Subsequently, the police arrested Manvi’s parents. After this, Manvi decided to convert back to Hinduism and participated in a Gharwapsi event organised by the Vishva Hindu Parishad in Lucknow, where 15 Hindus who had been converted to Islam through coercion, deceit, or incentives were reconverted to Hinduism. The Vishwa Hindu Raksha Parishad made everyone wear saffron scarves and applied tilak on their foreheads. Afterwards, everyone worshipped at the Shani Dev temple amidst the chanting of mantras. During the event, slogans of Jai Shri Ram were raised, and Manvi, along with other Hindu victims, returned to her original faith.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within this, the first subcategory selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary category selected 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 other subcategory selected is- Forced conversion before marriage. The tertiary category selected is- 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. In such cases, typically, two patterns emerge. First, when the relationship is 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. The second is when the woman gets into a marriage with the man pretending to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert her religion and give up her religious identity. In both the situations, 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 other subcategory selected is- Brainwashed and/or groomed. The tertiary category selected is- Rape and sexual assaulty/ harassment. In our database, we have not added incidents where women 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 woman for her 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 incidents 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 herself says that she was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. However, if the victim is deceased (murdered or otherwise), the case would form a part of this database if her family/friends provided testimony that the victim was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. Since these crimes have a distinct religious angle where the victim is being targeted owing to her Hindu religious identity, these cases are considered a hate crime. In this case, Meraj, the Muslim perpetrator, deliberately concealed his religious identity and assumed a fabricated Hindu identity to befriend Manvi, the Hindu victim. Such actions by the Muslim perpetrators of concealing their identity are well-calculated moves, motivated by a clear religious agenda. By intentionally deceiving the woman, the Muslim perpetrator exploited her trust and targeted her because of her faith. Such deception is not just a personal betrayal, but rather it is a premeditated action rooted in hostility and prejudice against the victim’s religion. After gaining her trust under false pretences, the Muslim perpetrator took the Hindu victim to meet an Islamic peer baba. There, she was forced to convert to Islam and marry him. This was not an isolated act; it was a calculated strategy, supported by the Islamic peer baba, to religiously profile and target the victim and forcefully convert her to Islam. Such actions showcase that the Muslim perpetrator had targeted the Hindu victim to fulfil his underlying agenda of religious conversion and marriage. Such deliberate acts are done to strip a Hindu individual of their own faith and further religious conversions, rooted in religious disdain and hatred for Hinduism. Following the forced marriage, Meraj sexually exploited the Hindu woman and recorded obscene videos of her. He then used these videos to blackmail her parents, threatening to release them unless they agreed to marry their younger daughter to him. The demand to marry the second Hindu daughter was a continuation of the same pattern: targeting Hindu girls with the intention to convert, dominate, and humiliate them and their families. Such actions are rooted in a supremacist ideology that views the conversion of non-Muslim women, particularly Hindus, not as a private matter but as a symbolic assertion of religious superiority. The attempt to claim both daughters reflects a broader agenda of eroding Hindu identity within families and communities. Therefore, the targeting of the younger daughter was equally, if not more, religiously motivated, an extension of the original hate crime against the elder daughter. Disclaimer: Media reports do not specify the exact date when the victim’s ordeal began. They only state that Manvi returned to her parent’s home three months after the marriage, suggesting that her conversion and marriage occurred approximately three months ago. Therefore, we are using an indicative date of 3rd April 2025, although media coverage emerged on 3rd July 2025, as Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 1
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 1
Case Status
Unknown
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
