Hindu female student says Muslim classmate raped her and used blackmail to push conversion and marriage

Case ID : cb2818e | Location : Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 25 July, 2025

Case ID : cb2818e

Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India

25 July, 2025

Hindu female student says Muslim classmate raped her and used blackmail to push conversion and marriage

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Blackmailed to convert

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Predatory Proselytisation

Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion

Case Summary

A Hindu female student has accused her Muslim classmate of rape, pressure to convert, and issuing threats to her life. The complainant, a student of Devi Ahilya University residing in the Tilak Nagar police station area of Indore, reported that her classmate Hams Sheikh used their routine classroom interaction to gain her trust. She stated that after some time, he proposed marriage, which she refused. He then distanced himself for a while, but later apologised and rebuilt the friendship. According to the complaint, on 26 July 2025, Hams went to the student’s home and raped her. After the assault, he continued to blackmail her. In August, the student got married and believed this would make him stop, but he allegedly resumed contact and began pressuring her to marry him and convert to Islam. Distressed by the continued threats, she informed her husband about the entire matter and filed a formal complaint at the Tilak Nagar police station on 3 December 2025. The survivor further stated that Hams harassed her during her daily commute to and from college, creating an atmosphere of constant fear. Seeking protection, she contacted local Hindu groups and members of the Karni Sena. With their assistance, the accused was located in Piplyahana and handed over to the police. At that time, the police had taken only preventive action against him, but following her detailed complaint, a case was registered under charges of rape, criminal intimidation, and violations of the Madhya Pradesh Religious Freedom Act.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added under the primary category- Hate crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Under this, the first relevant subcategory selected 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. The other subcategory is- Forced conversion before marriage. Within this, the tertiary category selected is- Forced to do Nikah. 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 category selected is- Predatory proselytisation. Under this, the subcategory chosen is- Harassment, threat, coercion from conversion. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats, in this case, find their root on discriminatory grounds which has the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion, forceful circumcision etc. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. This incident shows a sustained pattern of religiously motivated pressure in which the accused used the assault, along with threats and blackmail, to push the victim toward abandoning her faith. The objective was not limited to personal control but centered on forcing a change in her religious identity and compelling her to accept a marriage that required conversion. Even after the victim married elsewhere, the accused continued to pursue her with demands to convert and marry him, which makes clear that the pressure was tied to a religious goal rather than any genuine relationship. The insistence that she adopt his religion before marriage, along with the expectation that she submit to a Muslim marital rite, demonstrates a deliberate attempt to override her religious autonomy. The harassment during her travel to and from college and the repeated intimidation were used to weaken her ability to resist and to create a climate in which compliance with his religious demands seemed unavoidable. Taken together, the blackmail tied to conversion, the coercive push for a religiously defined marriage, and the continuous threats all indicate a targeted effort to alter her religious identity through force and manipulation. This aligns with a clear pattern of coercive proselytisation aimed specifically at a Hindu individual, where intimidation and emotional pressure are used to compel conversion. Disclaimer: While media coverage of the incident emerged on December 4, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the case based on when the victim’s ordeal began rather than when it was reported. In this incident, the sequence of abuse started on 26 July, 2025 when Hams went to the student’s home and raped her, which is why this date has been used as the primary incident date in the tracker.