Hindu girl lured, sexually exploited and pressured to convert by a Muslim man posing as Hindu

Case ID : aa4b216 | Location : Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 31 December, 2017

Case ID : aa4b216

Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

31 December, 2017

Hindu girl lured, sexually exploited and pressured to convert by a Muslim man posing as Hindu

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Forced conversion before marriage

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Case Summary

In Indore, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu girl was targeted, sexually exploited, and pressured to convert to Islam by a Muslim man named Faizan Khan, who pretended to be Hindu. According to the victim, she met Faizan through Instagram in 2018, who introduced himself as a Hindu man named Rahul. In 2019, when the victim visited her grandmother in Indore, Faizan met her, still using the name 'Rahul'. He continued to manipulate her and gained her trust by pretending to be a Hindu. In 2020, under the pretext of talking, he took her to a hotel where he had sexual relations with her and also took intimate pictures of her. After which, Faizan revealed his real identity to be a Muslim. He then began pressuring the Hindu girl to convert to Islam so that he could marry her. He threatened to make her intimate photos viral if she did not comply, and also threatened to kill her younger sister. The victim informed her family about these threats, who then approached the police and filed a complaint. As of the date of writing this report, the police have registered a case against Faizan and have initiated a search operation to nab 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 it, the first sub-category selected 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 to 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 second sub-category selected here is: Man pretends to be Hindu, with the tertiary category being: 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 third sub-category selected 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 girl was deliberately targeted by a Muslim man who deceived her by concealing his true religious identity. He introduced himself as a Hindu named 'Rahul' in order to manipulate her and gain her trust. The subsequent sexual relationship was based on the premise that the man was Hindu. He was fully aware that revealing his Muslim identity would lead to immediate rejection, which is why he chose to hide it. Concealing one's religious identity to establish a relationship with a person of another faith is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By misrepresenting himself as a Hindu, the accused exploited the trust of the girl under false pretences. This act of deception indicates a premeditated intent to manipulate her specifically because of her Hindu religious background. The tactic of adopting a false Hindu identity to manipulate and "ensnare" a Hindu individual is not merely an act of personal betrayal but can also be interpreted as an expression of disdain or disregard for Hinduism and its customs, reflecting a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. Once the emotional and physical trust was established, he revealed his true identity as a Muslim and began pressuring the girl to convert to Islam and marry him. When she refused, he started blackmailing her using her intimate pictures and even threatened to kill her younger sister in order to make the girl comply with his demands. This shows that he was never interested in a genuine relationship but in religious conversion and sexual exploitation of a Hindu girl. The manipulation and threats were not a mere coincidence, instead, they were part of a planned strategy to convert the Hindu girl. Such cases are not isolated incidents but part of a broader trend where identity concealment is used as a strategic tool to entrap Hindu women before coercion or violence follows upon resistance. Thus, the perpetrator’s deliberate decision to hide his religious identity strongly underscores the religious motive behind this crime. In such instances, identity concealment is not just a deceptive tactic for personal reasons but a calculated strategy rooted in religious profiling and targeting. The accused was aware that the victim, being Hindu, would likely refuse his advances if she knew his real identity, and he circumvented this by lying, which directly points to a religiously driven intent. This deception reflects a larger pattern where Hindu women are specifically singled out using false identities, often with coercion or conversion in mind. Such targeted victimisation based on religion not only demonstrates a fundamental disregard for Hinduism but also exposes a deeper animosity toward Hindus and their beliefs. This is why this case has been included in the tracker, as it exemplifies a clear instance of religiously motivated hate and exploitation.