Hindu woman deceived by man concealing his religious identity; victim’s father reveals she was threatened and forced into marriage

Case ID : 9958746 | Location : Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 19 June, 2024

Case ID : 9958746

Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, India

19 June, 2024

Hindu woman deceived by man concealing his religious identity; victim’s father reveals she was threatened and forced into marriage

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Family claims grooming

Case Summary

In Uttar Pradesh's Hathras district, a Hindu woman was deceived and trapped in a relationship by a man who concealed his real religious identity. The woman’s father, a resident of Kotwali Hathras Gate area, lodged a complaint against a youth from a nearby village, accusing him of luring his daughter under false pretences and keeping her with him. Following the complaint, police registered a case, recovered the woman from the accused’s residence, and sent her for medical examination. According to the father’s statement, his daughter had left home on 20 June 2024 with her four-year-old son and did not return. She also took jewellery and cash with her. Despite his attempts to find her, she could not be located. Recently, the daughter contacted him over the phone and revealed that she was living with a man from a village in the Kotwali Hathras Gate area. The father said that the man had hidden his true identity, used a forged Aadhaar card with a fake name, and employed deceitful means to entrap his daughter. The father further stated that the accused was keeping his daughter forcibly as his wife. Whenever she expressed a desire to return home, he threatened her, saying that her brother would be killed if she tried to leave. Acting on the complaint, the police registered a case, recovered the woman from the accused’s house, and sent her for a doctor’s examination. Police officials said the matter is under active investigation, and all aspects will be thoroughly examined. Based on the findings, further legal action will be taken.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This incident has been added to the tracker under the category- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The first subcategory relevant here is- Man pretends to be Hindu, and the tertiary category selected within this 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 subcategory selected is- Brainwashed and/or groomed. Within this, the tertiary category selected is- Family claims grooming. 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 incident is considered a religiously motivated hate crime because every aspect of it was rooted in hostility toward the victim’s Hindu identity rather than being a case of personal deceit alone. The accused concealed his true faith by adopting a Hindu name and even using a forged Aadhaar card to pass himself off as Hindu. This form of deception is not neutral; it specifically exploits the cultural trust that Hindu families place in intra-faith relationships. By pretending to share the victim’s religion, the accused bypassed her ability to make an informed choice, showing clear contempt for Hindu faith and customs, which were treated as obstacles to be overcome rather than respected. The targeting of a Hindu woman in particular highlights how this crime was aimed not randomly at women but selectively at members of a religious community viewed as vulnerable. The coercion intensified when the accused threatened to kill the victim’s brother if she attempted to return home. These threats were not simply about personal control but about cutting her off from her Hindu family and community, thereby breaking her connection to her faith and kinship structures. Forcibly keeping her as his wife further deepened the religious animosity, as marriage in Hindu tradition is more than a personal relationship. It is a sacred institution tied to dharma, culture, and communal honour. By deceiving and coercing a Hindu woman into marriage, the accused not only violated her autonomy but also symbolically attacked Hindu religious and cultural values. The father’s testimony reinforces this dimension, as he explicitly described her as a victim of grooming carried out through religious concealment, reflecting how Hindu families experience such incidents as assaults on their faith. Taken together, the identity fraud, selective targeting of Hindu women, coercive threats, exploitation through marriage, and the family’s perception all demonstrate that this was an act of religious hostility. It was designed to weaken and humiliate the Hindu community, making it a clear case of a hate crime motivated by animosity against Hinduism. Disclaimer: The earliest reference in the media reports states that the victim left with the accused on 20 June 2024. For documentation purposes, we have treated this date as the incident date, using it as a placeholder to mark the beginning of her ordeal. Although the case was reported in the media only on 18 September 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents according to when the victim’s suffering began rather than when the story entered public reporting.