Hindu woman lured, raped, and coerced for religious conversion and marriage by Muslim man posing as Hindu

Case ID : 99583ca | Location : Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 20 August, 2025

Case ID : 99583ca

Haridwar, Uttarakhand, India

20 August, 2025

Hindu woman lured, raped, and coerced for religious conversion and marriage by Muslim man posing as Hindu

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Forced conversion before marriage

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

In Haridwar, Uttarakhand, a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship, raped and pressurised for religious conversion and marriage by a Muslim man named Farid Malik. The accused, a resident of Sultanpur Laksar, trapped the Hindu woman by concealing his identity and posing as a Hindu man named Sonu. He introduced himself as a software engineer and lured the woman into a relationship under the pretext of marriage. Over several months, he sexually exploited her and also made objectionable and obscene videos of her. When the victim discovered that the accused's real name is Farid and that he was a Muslim, he started pressuring her to convert to Islam and marry him. The victim stated that she managed to escape from his control and return to her father’s house, but the accused continued to harass and torture her. In addition to the sexual exploitation and coercion for conversion, the woman reported that he had taken nearly three lakh rupees from her bank account by threatening her. As of the date of writing this report, the police registered a case based on the victim's complaint. SSP Pramod Doval confirmed that investigations were underway, and a search was being conducted to arrest the accused.

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 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 second sub-category selected here is - Forced conversion before marriage. 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 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 pressurising 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 subcategory selected is- Brainwashed and/ or Groomed. Within this, the tertiary category selected is- Rape and sexual assault/ 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 hate crimes. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship and sexually exploited by a Muslim man, who pretended to be Hindu. The perpetrator deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with a Hindu woman. 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. Often in such cases, sexual exploitation serves as a manipulative tactic designed to strip the victim of agency and push her into submission, including religious conversion. The intention is to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she can be converted. Recording of the videos, in this case, was another similar tactic that has often been employed by Muslim perpetrators in order to force the victim into conversion. Such acts are not merely personal crimes; they are rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim, thereby qualifying them as religiously motivated hate crimes. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when the victim’s ordeal began. However, in this case, the report does not provide specific details regarding when the accused trapped the victim. Therefore, for documentation purposes, the date of the incident has been recorded as the date it was reported in the media.