Hindu woman faces prolonged harassment, coercion, and death threats for religious conversion by Muslim man, commits suicide

Case ID : cb28197 | Location : Belgaum, Karnataka, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 4 December, 2017

Case ID : cb28197

Belgaum, Karnataka, India

4 December, 2017

Hindu woman faces prolonged harassment, coercion, and death threats for religious conversion by Muslim man, commits suicide

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Suicide for being forced to or pressured to convert

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Case Summary

In Gonaganur village of Ramadurga taluka in Belagavi district, Karnataka, a 28-year-old married Hindu woman took her own life after enduring prolonged harassment, coercion, and death threats for religious conversion from a local Muslim man named Maktumsab Patil. According to reports, the Hindu woman, Nagavva Demappa Vantamuri, was married to Demappa Vantamuri about 9 years ago, in 2016. Roughly one year after marriage, in 2017, she came into contact with the accused, Maktumsab Patil, which gradually turned into an illicit relationship. When her family came to know about the relationship, they reprimanded her and urged her to end all contact with him, after which she severed ties in an attempt to restore normalcy in her life. However, following the break-up, the accused escalated his behaviour and began harassing her, repeatedly visiting her home. He demanded that she abandon Hinduism, convert to Islam, and resume the relationship. Family members revealed that the accused pressured her to convert, questioning, "Why are you in Hinduism? Come to our Muslim religion" and threatened to kill her if she refused to comply. The accused continued to harass her while subjecting her to death threats. Unable to withstand the persistent harassment, the victim hung herself at her home. This led to shock and outrage within the family and the wider village community. The victim's family demanded strict action against the accused, emphasising that Maktumsab's continued threats and coercion led to the victim's death. Based on the victim's family complaint, Katakola Police registered a case, visited the scene, documented evidence, and sent the body for post-mortem examination. Police also began questioning neighbours and local residents to reconstruct the sequence of events and determine the extent of the accused’s involvement in driving Nagavva to suicide. As of the date of writing this report, the investigation was ongoing.

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 - 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. The other sub-category selected is - Suicide for being forced to or pressured to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with a non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces pressure/threats/violence to convert and change her religious identity 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. In some of these cases, unable to bear the pressure/threat/violence being mounted by the non-Hindu partner to convert, the Hindu woman commits suicide. In such cases, often, threats are also given to the family members of the Hindu woman. Since such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim, leading to the woman committing suicide, these cases are categorized as a hate crime. This case has been added to the tracker because it exemplifies a pattern of religiously motivated harassment and coercion against a Hindu woman, resulting in her taking her own life. Nagavva’s suicide was not an isolated act of despair, but the final consequence of relentless pressure, intimidation, and threats centred on forcing her to abandon her Hindu faith and convert. Firstly, the accused’s actions directly targeted her religious identity. pressuring or harassing a Hindu individual to discard her 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. Secondly, when the victim resisted these demands and refused to convert, the accused escalated his abuse, harassing her and threatening to kill her in order to make her comply. This emotional exploitation and threats of violence, intertwined with demands for religious conversion, starkly demonstrate the perpetrator's deliberate animosity towards her as a Hindu woman and his intent to strip her of her faith and self-respect. Such actions are rooted in deep-seated hostility towards Hinduism and its adherents. Thirdly, the harassment became so overwhelming and unrelenting that the Hindu victim, unable to find support or escape, took her own life. Her suicide stands as a tragic testament to the unbearable mental and emotional torment she endured. The sustained nature of the abuse, the threats, and the obsession with conversion make it clear that this was not simply misconduct; it was a form of persecution driven by religious hostility, intended to dominate and subjugate her. The fact that constant pressure, harassment and threats of violence for conversion drove her to end her life underscores the religiously motivated nature of this 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. This shows the deep-seated hatred in the mind of the accused, who was determined to convert the victim at any cost. His persistent harassment and the use of threats indicate not only his jihadi mindset but also a deeper ideological animosity directed against the victim's Hindu religious identity. In conclusion, the victim's death was a direct outcome of systematic religious harassment and coercion targeting her Hindu faith. Her suicide, therefore, represents the ultimate manifestation of religiously motivated hate against a Hindu individual. 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 2017, one year after her marriage. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date—5 December 2017—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 5 December 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.