Hindu woman deceived and threatened to convert by Muslim man posing as Hindu; part of organised pattern targeting Hindu women
Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India 
11 July, 2025
Case Summary
In Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu girl was deceived by a Muslim youth who concealed his religious identity and posed as a Hindu. She was subjected to rape, blackmail, forced abortion, and pressure to convert to Islam through Nikah. The same individual has deceived nearly 18 other Hindu girls using similar methods. The victim is from Lakhimpur. According to the victim, she met the accused, Kasib Pathan, two years ago through a fake Facebook and Instagram account under the name “Shiv Verma.” Posing as a Hindu, Kasib won her trust by wearing a tilak, tying a black thread on his wrist, and swearing by Hindu deities. Gaining her confidence, he promised marriage and initiated a physical relationship with her, secretly recording videos to later blackmail her. Kasib rented a room in Shahjahanpur’s Sinjhai locality, where he continued to exploit her under the false identity of “Shiv Verma.” During one incident, the victim checked his mobile phone and discovered disturbing evidence. Kasib, along with his brother Kaif and an associate named Akhil (son of Firoz alias Guddu), were running a coordinated operation to trap Hindu girls in romantic relationships and convert them. Hundreds of obscene photos and videos of girls were found on the accused's phone, revealing the scale of the conspiracy. The victim further reported that upon becoming pregnant, she was pressured by Kasib, his brother, father, sister, and mother to undergo an abortion. When she resisted, Kasib physically assaulted her by kicking her in the stomach, causing her to miscarry a three-month pregnancy. Following this, she was forcibly pressured to convert to Islam, perform Nikah and live with him as his wife. When she refused, she was threatened with death. The incident sparked massive outrage among Hindu organisations, who held protests outside Chowk Kotwali police station. Protesters condemned the incident as part of an organised Love Jihad racket and demanded strict and immediate action against all involved. They also accused the police of negligence in the matter. As of now, the FIR was registered, and the case was under investigation.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected is: Man pretends to be Hindu, with the tertiary categories being: - Name changed, Wears symbols of Hinduism and Pattern of targeting Hindu women. 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 sub-category selected is - Assault or threat upon refusal to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force 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 pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat, are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though, it may be argued that the woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. The other sub-category selected is - Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The other sub-category selected is - Forced conversion before marriage, with the tertiary category being - 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu girl was deceived and pressured to convert by a Muslim man who posed as a Hindu. His malicious intent was evident from the outset, as he sought to befriend the Hindu woman by deliberately concealing his Muslim identity. To build trust, he adopted visible Hindu markers—wearing a tilak, tying a black thread on his wrist, and swearing by Hindu deities—further deepening the deception. This itself is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, he exploited her trust, targeting her under false pretences. This indicates a premeditated intent to manipulate her based on her religious background. In cases like these, the tactic of adopting a false Hindu identity to manipulate and "ensnare" a Hindu individual is not just an act of personal betrayal but can also be interpreted as an expression of disdain or disregard for Hinduism and its customs that reflects a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. The victim was repeatedly pressured to accept Islam and live with Kasib as his wife. Upon her refusal, she faced brutal physical violence—including being kicked in the stomach during pregnancy, leading to a miscarriage—as well as death threats. These violent acts were directly tied to her resistance to religious conversion and refusal to accept Islamic identity, making the motivation explicitly religious. The victim was emotionally and psychologically coerced into accepting Islam. The coercion to convert, combined with threats to her life and physical safety, reflects a clear religious motivation rooted in her Hindu identity. Such pressure, when tied to a victim’s religious background and involving manipulation, violence, and threats, qualifies the case as a religiously motivated hate crime. The Hindu woman was pressured to convert to Islam and made to undergo Nikah against her will. Such pressure to convert before marriage is a recurring tactic used to strip Hindu women of their religious identity. In this case, the victim was not only deceived about the man's religion but was later coerced to formalise the relationship through a religious ceremony that mandates conversion. The insistence on Nikah as a condition to legitimise the relationship reinforces the religious motive and makes this a clear example of a hate crime based on the woman’s Hindu identity. This case also reflects a broader pattern of targeting Hindu women, as the accused, along with his brother and other Muslim associates, had trapped nearly 18 Hindu girls using similar tactics of religious deception and coercion. This was not an isolated incident but part of a larger, organised effort involving multiple individuals from the same community, pointing to a deliberate strategy to exploit Hindu women based on their religious identity. The coordinated nature of these acts, involving family members and collaborators, highlights systemic targeting rather than personal misconduct. This pattern reinforces the case’s classification as a religiously motivated hate crime directed against the Hindu community. Hence, this case qualifies as a hate crime, as one Muslim man deliberately targeted a Hindu woman using religious deception and coercion, consistent with a broader pattern of exploiting Hindu women for conversion. Disclaimer: While multiple Hindu women were targeted by Muslim perpetrators using similar methods, only one victim has given an official statement; hence, the victim count is recorded as one. Although the broader pattern of targeting involves more than one perpetrator, in this specific case, only one Muslim man was directly involved in the acts reported by the victim; therefore, the perpetrator count is also recorded as one. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that the report does not specify the exact date when the woman’s ordeal began. 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
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 1
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
