Samir pretends to be Sonu to befriend Hindu girl, forces her to do Nikah, gang-rapes her with his friend Afzal, issues threats when she resists reading Namaz
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India 
10 May, 2024
Case Summary
In Indore, Madhya Pradesh, Samir Khan pretended to be Sonu Maratha to befriend a Dalit widow. After two years of being in a relationship, when the woman asked him to marry her, he revealed he was Muslim and then forced her to marry him in an Islamic ceremony conducted by his cleric brother, Maulana Hafiz. He pressured her to maintain a physical relationship with another man, Afzal Khan, who even attempted to rape her 13-year-old daughter. They used to drug her food and drinks till she lost consciousness. They then used to shoot obscene videos of her, which they used as blackmail. They assaulted her, threatened to leak her videos on the web which would result in her parents committing suicide, and scared her with a knife. Samir compelled the mother and daughter to perform Namaz. The woman attempted to end her life, however, activists from Akhil Bhartiya Balai Samaj (ABBS) intervened and registered a case. The investigation is now underway.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
In this case, there are three distinct components which prove that the offence was committed coupled with a religious bias hence this case has been classified as a religious hate crime. As per the details of the case, it has been documented in the tracker under the prime category 'Hate crime against woman in relationship'. To narrow down the search further we have chosen the subcategories 'Man pretends to be Hindu', 'Forced conversion after marriage' and 'Assault or threat upon refusal to convert' under this core category. The first sub-category relevant in this case is 'man pretends to be Hindu', as details show that the Muslim perpetrator actively hid his religious identity and donned a Hindu name 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 accused not only forced the HIndu victim to marry him per Islamic rituals but pressured her and her daughter to follow Islamic practices like performing Namaz. In such cases, a non-Hindu man marries a Hindu woman and the force/pressure to convert to Islam begins after marriage. In such cases, the marriage is consensual in most cases and often, there is no element of the man hiding his religious identity. The marriage could be under the Special Marriages Act where neither parties are required to convert their religion for the marriage to be considered legitimate. While the victim in such cases enters matrimony assuming that religious identity is not a barrier, the non-Hindu man starts to pressure the woman to convert to Islam after marriage. In such cases, there is application of force by the perpetrator, including, denial of the woman’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the woman is forced/pressured to convert include force-feeding beef, forced to read the Kalma, forced to wear a hijab, forced for Halala, etc. There are several instances where after marriage, the woman voluntarily converts to Islam. Such cases are often argued to be a result of religious brainwashing, however, for the purpose of documenting religiously motivated hate crimes, in the absence of the victim complaining of forced conversion, such cases do not form a part of the database. Lastly what makes this case worthy of being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime is that the Muslim accused assaulted the victim and threatened to leak her intimate pictures online, an arm-twisting tactic employed by the perpetrator to make the victim submit to his 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. The fact that the Hindu woman was trapped with the sole aim of conversion, makes this case worthy of being documented under this category.
Victim Details
Total Victim
2
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 2
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 2
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
