Case Summary

In Dombivali of Thane district, Maharashtra, a 29-year-old Hindu yoga instructor was groomed, raped, blackmailed and forced to convert to Islam by a Muslim man named Imran Sheikh, known locally as the Nariyal Wala Fakir/Chhotebaba, and his family. According to reports, the victim's family had been visiting a Muslim cleric, Subhan Sheikh (father of Imran Sheikh), a Mumbra-based occult practitioner, to seek relief from their financial difficulties. During such visits, the accused, Imran Sheikh, came into contact with the victim, befriended her and gained the trust of the family. Subsequently, Imran approached the victim in July 2022 under the pretext of yoga training and took her to an unoccupied house in Dattuwadi, Mumbra. There, he raped her, recorded videos of the sexual assault, and threatened to destroy her family through witchcraft if she told anyone about the incident. He repeatedly used the recordings to blackmail her, persistently sexually exploiting her while keeping her in a state of fear, isolation, and psychological breakdown. He warned her that if she resisted, he would show the recording to her parents and relatives. Terrified of social stigma and family safety, she stopped going out and lived under constant fear. Over the next two years, he took her to various locations, including Mumbra and Akola, and sexually exploited her under the guise of performing rituals to protect her from evil forces. He also pressured her to convert to Islam and follow Islamic rituals. He even coerced her into eating beef in an effort to humiliate her. When the victim told Imran's family about her ordeal, they abused her, assaulted her and forced her to marry Imran, while hiding the fact that he was already married twice. Imran continued threatening the victim, saying that he would destroy her parents and brothers through sorcery if she attempted to leave him. When the abuse became unbearable, she escaped Mumbra under the excuse of visiting a doctor and returned to her mother’s home in Dombivli, after which she approached the Ramnagar Police Station on 13 November 2025. Based on her complaint, police registered an FIR against Imran Sheikh and four members of his family—his father Subhan Sheikh, mother Samira, sister Hussaina, and brother-in-law Fakhruddin—under sections related to rape, intimidation, blackmail, forced confinement, and coercive marriage. The victim and her family stated that they feared retaliation from the accused’s network, and Hindu groups demanded that the investigation be transferred out of Mumbra due to concerns of local pressure and bias.

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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 sub-category selected is - Brainwashed and/or groomed, with the tertiary category being - Rape and sexual assault/harassment In several cases, a Hindu woman and/or minor is sexually harassed and/or assaulted with a religious motive. For example, in a case in Kausambi, UP, a Hindu girl was raped by non-Hindu perpetrators. During the assault, the victim pleaded to 'spare her in the name of Bhagwan'. The perpetrators then asked her to plead in the name of Allah. This clearly indicates a religious motive for the crime and evidences the religious animosity the perpetrators harbored against the victim owing to her religious identity. Such cases would be added to this tertiary category since the religious animosity makes the crime a hate crime. The other sub-category selected here is - Forced conversion before marriage, with the tertiary category being - Forced to follow non-Hindu religious practises and Forced to eat beef. 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 other sub-category selected here is - Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. This case has been added to the tracker because a 29-year-old Hindu yoga instructor was groomed, raped, blackmailed and forced to convert to Islam by a Muslim cleric, Imran Sheikh and his family. Firstly, the accused brainwashed the victim and took her to Mumbra, where he sexually exploited the victim and recorded her videos. This exploitation was not a random act of crime; rather, it functioned as a religiously motivated tool aimed at humiliating and dominating a Hindu girl because of her faith. The target was not the victim as an individual, but her Hindu identity. The specific focus on her Hindu identity in the commission of these acts highlights the religious hatred underlying the crime, making it a religiously motivated offence. Secondly, the accused blackmailed her and sexually exploited her multiples times. In such cases, sexual violence and blackmail serves dual purpose of physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention was to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she could be converted. This was not random violence; it was systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. This was also the reason the victim was assaulted by the accused and his family. Thirdly, the accused forcibly converted the victim to Islam and married her. In Islam, marriage to a non-Muslim partner is prohibited, which is why she was pressured for religious conversion. Pressuring a Hindu individual to discard his religious faith and embrace another is a direct attack on her religious identity and dignity. It was not a matter of personal choice; it was coercion rooted in hostility towards the victim's Hindu identity. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act was not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. Fourth, as a practising Hindu, the victim was forced by the Muslim accused and his family to eat beef, an act prohibited in Hinduism, where the cow is considered sacred. Forcing her to consume beef was a deliberate attempt to dishonour her religion and humiliate her. This was not only sacrilegious but also a further tactic to weaken her attachment to her faith and force her towards conversion. Such acts have a precedent in history, where Hindu victims were forcibly fed beef by Muslim extremists to desecrate their beliefs and push them towards abandoning their Hindu faith. In this case, the force-feeding of beef was both an act of grave religious violation and an instrument in attempted forced conversion, shaped by hostility towards the Hindu victim and her faith, rendering this, unequivocally, a religiously motivated hate crime. 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. Such acts were not merely personal crimes; they were rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. 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 came into contact with the accused in July 2022. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date—13 July 202—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering, aligning with the date the complaint was filed - 13 November 2025. While media coverage of the incident emerged later, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.