Hindu woman coerced for conversion and nikah by Muslim man faking Hindu identity; head smashed, ear and a finger chopped off for refusing conversion

Case ID : 9958608 | Location : Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 7 February, 2025

Case ID : 9958608

Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India

7 February, 2025

Hindu woman coerced for conversion and nikah by Muslim man faking Hindu identity; head smashed, ear and a finger chopped off for refusing conversion

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Case Summary

In Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was deceived and coerced into religious conversion and Nikah by a Muslim man named Rehan, who assumed a false Hindu identity to entrap her. According to reports, the Hindu woman was divorced and was living with her parents along with her 4-year-old child. About seven months ago, the victim went to a repair shop, which was owned by the accused, to get her mixer repaired. There, she came into contact with the accused, who introduced himself as a Hindu man named Bittu. The victim, believing him to be Hindu, shared her phone number, and they started talking with each other regularly over the phone. Over time, she discovered that the accused's real name was Rehan and that he was Muslim, after which she severed all contact with him. Despite this, the accused began pressuring her to marry him according to Muslim customs. The victim refused, stating that they both belonged to different religions. The victim stated that Rehan called her to his shop on September 4, 2025, and when she refused, he threatened her with dire consequences. Under duress, the victim went to meet him, accompanied by her mother. Rehan took them to his house, where his sister Rinki, Sinha, Shimpi, Babbu, brother-in-law Wasim and mother Ajjo began pressuring the victim to convert and marry him. When she protested, the accused threatened to kill her entire family. The victim avoided all contact with the accused; however, he started stalking her. One day, while she was going to the market with her daughter, the accused followed her and brutally attacked her with an iron rod, causing severe injuries. Her head of smashed and her ear and a finger were cut off. The accused also attempted to abduct her daughter, but locals intervened and rescued the girl while admitting the victim to the hospital. With the help of a Hindu organisation, the victim approached the police and filed a complaint. Following this, a case was registered against Rehan and his family. At the time of writing the case, the accused was absconding, and a search operation was underway to arrest him.

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. 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 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 third sub-category selected here 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman was lured and pressured for religious conversion by the Muslim accused, who pretended to be Hindu. The accused deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with a Hindu girl. 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 Muslim accused then attempted to force the Hindu woman to convert to Islam for marriage. He called her to his house, where he, along with his family, pressured the Hindu woman to convert. This, more than anything, underscores the religious motivation behind the crime. Pressuring someone to abandon their faith and adopt another religion against their will is a blatant violation of religious freedom. Forced conversion through coercion is a direct assault on a person’s rights and autonomy. The Muslim perpetrator harboured animosity towards the Hindu girl because of her religious identity, this is quite evident from the way he targeted her specifically for her religious identity. Such acts show that the victim was deliberately targeted and financially exploited, with the underlying agenda of religious conversion, making this a clear case of a religiously motivated crime. Adding to this, when the victim refused to convert, the Muslim accused threatened to kill her and her entire family to make her comply with his demands. Using fear and threats to force a victim into religious conversion is a glaring demonstration of religious animosity at the heart of the crime. The intention was to break the victim down emotionally, physically and spiritually, so that she could be converted for marriage. When his tactics failed, he brutally attacked the victim with an iron rod, severely injuring her, and attempted to kidnap her daughter. This brutal violence was entirely centred on her refusal to give up her faith and submit to his demands. This was not random violence; it was systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. Such actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. Since such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime. 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 she met the accused about seven months ago in February 2025. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date—February 8, 2025—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on September 8, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.