Hindu woman deceived by Muslim man posing as Hindu; married in Hindu temple, impregnated and later abandoned

Case ID : 99585da | Location : Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 5 September, 2024

Case ID : 99585da

Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

5 September, 2024

Hindu woman deceived by Muslim man posing as Hindu; married in Hindu temple, impregnated and later abandoned

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Marries as per Hindu rituals

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

In Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, a 26-year-old Hindu woman was lured, sexually exploited and impregnated by a Muslim man named Shamshad Alam. Alam posed as a Hindu man to trap the victim. According to reports, the victim came into contact with the accused through Instagram, where he introduced himself as a Hindu man named Rakesh Nishad. Initially, the victim blocked him, but he continued to contact her through Facebook Messenger until she gradually gave in to his persistence. The victim had married previously and had two children, but her husband abandoned her, leaving her isolated. The accused took advantage of her emotional vulnerability and trapped her in a relationship. He promised her marriage and assured her of support for her two children, convincing her of his sincerity. The accused, while still concealing his religious identity, began sexually exploiting her under the pretext of marriage. He sexually exploited the victim for over a year, while delaying marriage one way or the other. When the victim started pressuring him for marriage, he took a loan of Rs. 50,000 from her and eventually staged a wedding ceremony in a Hindu temple. The victim said that she sold her horse to provide him with this money, believing it would secure their marriage and future together. Subsequently, both started living together; however, after about 15 days, the accused left for Saudi Arabia to work, taking another ₹70,000 from the victim. He returned after 3 months and began meeting the victim in hotels in Gorakhpur, but avoided taking her to his home. When the woman pressed him, he physically assaulted her and disclosed that his real name was Shamshad Alam, that he was already married with four children. He also told her that he could not take her into his household because of his religion. By this time, the victim was already three months pregnant. Thus, in an attempt to appease her, he took her to his village in Lauriya Telpur, Bettiah, on August 13, 2025. There, his wife, children, and parents confronted her, declaring that a woman from another religion could not live in their home. They also physically assaulted the victim and threw her out of the house. Despite her pleas that she was pregnant with Shamshad’s child, they showed no mercy and abandoned her. The victim then approached the police and filed a complaint. She stated that throughout their relationship, Shamshad had taken large sums of money from her under false pretences while exploiting her emotionally and physically. The police registered a case of rape, assault, cheating, and criminal intimidation against Shamshad Alam alias Rakesh, his father Sultan Mian, his mother, and his wife. The police were conducting raids to apprehend the accused.

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 subcategory selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary category selected is- Name Changed and Marries as per Hindu rituals. 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- Brainwashed and/or Groomed. 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 a hate crime. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship by a Muslim man, who pretended to be Hindu. The accused 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. The accused deceived the Hindu girl with the intention of sexual exploitation. He claimed to be unmarried and sexually exploited her and impregnated her. Often in such cases, sexual exploitation serves as a manipulative tactic designed to strip the victim of agency and force her into religious conversion. In this incident, the crime was not just about personal exploitation but also a form of religiously motivated targeting, where the deception and coercion were rooted in hostility towards the victim’s Hindu identity, making it a religiously motivated crime. Such faith-based targeting and sexual exploitation of non-Muslim women, particularly Hindu women, stem from the indoctrination of Islamic theology. This ideology supports and glorifies the exploitation of Hindu women by Muslim men as a so-called "noble deed." Therefore, these cases clearly reveal a deep-seated doctrinal hostility towards Hindus and their faith, marking these acts as religiously motivated crimes. Furthermore, the accused, along with his family, also physically assaulted her and financially exploited her. He took money from her repeatedly under different false pretences, draining her limited resources while she struggled to raise two children on her own. Even after exploiting her financially and emotionally, the accused abandoned her during pregnancy and, along with his family, subjected her to violence and humiliation. This not only inflicted severe physical and psychological trauma on the woman but also reflected a deliberate targeting of Hindu women rooted in religious hostility. 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 the accused sexually exploited her for over a year. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date—September 6, 2024—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on September 6, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.