Muslim man poses as Hindu to trap Hindu woman, rapes her, converts her to Islam and force-feeds beef
Satara, Maharashtra, India 
15 April, 2024
Case Summary
In Chhatrapati Sabhajinagar district of Maharashtra, a complaint was filed by the Satara Police Station against four individuals, Taher Pathan, Taiyab Pathan, Ayesha Pathan, and Lailabi Pathan on April 16, 2024, for trapping a 27-year-old Hindu woman and coercing her to convert to Islam. The primary accused, Taher Pathan, initially posed as a Hindu Gujarati named Sameer Patel, developing a relationship with the victim. He forcefully established physical relations with her. After two years, she discovered his true identity and attempted to end the relationship, but he threatened to leak her intimate videos. The woman remained pregnant in the due course, but the accused assaulted her and killed the child in her womb. In 2022, Taher took her to a Maulana, made her drink some liquid which made her dizzy, and then forced her to read the Quran and get married to him. He forcibly converted her to Islam, making her consume beef and wear a burqa. She was also subjected to physical assault by Taher's family members. The girl further discovered that the accused was already married and was a father of four kids. With assistance from the Hindu community and media, the victim filed an FIR, leading to charges including rape, forceful conversion, and assault under various sections of the IPC. Further investigations are ongoing.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
Three distinct elements in this particular case demonstrate that the Muslim perpetrator committed the crime while harbouring a bias against the Hindu faith. The first factor is that the accused actively pretended to be a Hindu to deceive the Hindu victim. 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 component in this case which makes it worthy of being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime is that the Muslim perpetrator forced the victim to convert to Islam and made her forcefully follow Islamic principles like wearing a hijab and performing Namaz. He also forced her to eat beef, considered a taboo in Hinduism. 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. The relationship in such cases is mostly 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. In such cases, 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. Third, the Muslim perpetrator assaulted the victim after she refused to accede to his conversion demands. 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. Since this case meets the components mentioned above of religiously motivated hate crimes against Hindu women this case has been documented here.
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 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
