Hindu woman lured into relationship, pressured for religious conversion by married Muslim man faking Hindu identity

Case ID : cb281e4 | Location : Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 5 December, 2025

Case ID : cb281e4

Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh, India

5 December, 2025

Hindu woman lured into relationship, pressured for religious conversion by married Muslim man faking Hindu identity

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Blackmailed to convert

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Forced conversion before marriage

Case Summary

A Hindu young woman from the village of Balwara in Khandwa district was trapped in a love deception by a married Muslim man, Meherban Munir, who repeatedly subjected her to forced physical relations and pressured her into converting to Islam. During this period, he secretly recorded objectionable videos of the victim without her consent. After gaining her trust by initially presenting himself with a Hindu-sounding name, the Muslim man began taking her to his house, where he filmed the videos. Once the recordings were made, his behaviour changed abruptly; he started blackmailing her with threats of leaking the videos and forced physical relations whenever she resisted. When she protested, he physically assaulted her and silenced her with further threats. His wife, Shabnam, was actively involved in the harassment. The couple frequently locked the woman in a room, mentally tortured her, beat her, and pressured her to convert to Islam, stating that all problems would end if she changed her religion. She repeatedly and clearly refused to convert or continue any relationship. The victim got married on 3rd December 2025. Before the wedding, the accused tried to stop her from marrying anyone else. When she firmly refused to marry him and went ahead with her wedding, Meherban, along with Shabnam, circulated the objectionable videos across the village and on social media as revenge. As soon as the videos spread in the village, the victim went into shock and disclosed everything to her family. Her family immediately filed a formal complaint. Piplod police took the accused into custody and initiated questioning. Based on her written complaint, a case was registered against Meherban Munir and his wife, Shabnam, under sections related to rape, physical assault, criminal intimidation, blackmailing, pressuring for religious conversion, and violations under the IT Act. Her medical examination was conducted, statements were being recorded, technical evidence was being collected, and the devices used to circulate the videos were seized.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the first primary category: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The first subcategory selected under this is: Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary category selected is: 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 malicious 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 subcategory selected is: Brainwashed and/or Groomed. The tertiary category selected is: Rape and sexual assault/harassment. In our database, we have not added incidents where women have converted to another religion of their free will, and no allegations of forced/involuntary conversion have been made. However, there are certain cases of conversion where the consent itself is a result of the brainwashing or grooming of a minor by the non-Hindu perpetrator trying to victimise a woman for her Hindu religious identity. The phenomenon of grooming points to non-Hindu perpetrators identifying their Hindu victims’ vulnerabilities and exploiting them over months and sometimes years, to extract the supposed ‘consent’ in order to convert their religion. In most cases of grooming, the victims are minors, or the grooming started when the victim was a minor. In other cases of grooming, the non-Hindu perpetrator brainwashes and grooms a minor victim to extract their trust and then proceeds to rape them repeatedly with the intent of converting them to their faith. It is pertinent to understand here that when the victim is a minor, the ‘consent’ to convert or enter into a romantic relationship with an adult itself is redundant – addressed by POCSO. While every case of conversion of a minor and incidents of establishing a physical relationship with a minor by an adult is a crime, for the purpose of this database, a case would be considered a hate crime only if there is a distinct religious angle to the grooming. For example, in the UK, if a Hindu minor is targeted by Pakistani grooming gangs, it would be considered a hate crime because the victims are specifically targeted owing to their non-Muslim religious identity, with the perpetrators being Muslim. In other cases, if a Hindu minor is brainwashed into entering a physical relationship with the non-Hindu adult perpetrator and the family alleges grooming/brainwashing of the minor to convert her religion, it would form a part of this database. If the victim is a Hindu adult, the case would form a part of this database only if the victim herself says that she was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. However, if the victim is deceased (murdered or otherwise), the case would form a part of this database if her family/friends provided testimony that the victim was brainwashed/groomed to convert her religion. Since these crimes have a distinct religious angle where the victim is being targeted owing to her Hindu religious identity, these cases are considered hate crimes. The third 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 fourth subcategory 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 pressurising 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 subcategory 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 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. This case is a clear instance of an anti-Hindu hate crime rooted in religious animosity. A Hindu woman was befriended by a married Muslim man, Meherban Munir, who deceitfully posed as a Hindu to gain her trust. He sexually harassed her and pressured her to convert to Islam, further blackmailing her with her photographs. The perpetrator’s deliberate concealment of his Muslim identity and deception to form a relationship with the victim demonstrate a profound bias and malicious intent rooted in religious targeting. By masquerading as Hindu, he exploited her trust and violated her right to informed consent in relationships based on shared beliefs. This calculated deception reflects a predatory strategy aimed at exploiting the Hindu woman due to her religious identity, exposing deep animosity and disregard for Hinduism. Such identity concealment is not mere personal deceit but a tactic of religious profiling and deliberate targeting of Hindus, making it a religiously motivated offence. The accused lured the victim to his house, where he sexually exploited her and recorded the act without the victim's consent. This assault transcended personal gratification and marked a deliberate act to humiliate and degrade her because of her Hindu identity, making it a glaring example of an anti-Hindu hate crime. Accused wife, Shabnam, joined in the harassment and torture, making it clear that the Muslim duo treated the Hindu woman as a mere trophy for religious dominance. Furthermore, the coercion and harassment used to force her conversion to Islam reveal a deep-seated religious hatred driving this crime. Forced conversion imposed through threats, intimidation, and pressure—rather than through genuine personal conviction—constitutes clear religious persecution. When conversions occur not by free will but as a result of external coercion, they represent a blatant anti-Hindu hate crime. Such acts are deliberately committed to strip the Hindu victim of her faith, thereby making the offence unequivocally religiously motivated and reflecting a profound animosity towards Hinduism. This abuse of power to deny an individual’s right to freely choose or maintain their faith is a serious violation of fundamental human rights. When the victim refused, the accused began intimidating, threatening, and mentally harassing her. This deliberate use of threats, coercion, and psychological and physical harassment to compel religious conversion revealed the depth of religious hatred and the calculated attempt to break the victim’s resolve through fear. By employing intimidation and psychological pressure as means of religious enforcement, the accused displayed complete disregard for her autonomy, faith, and safety. These threats and assaults were not isolated acts of hostility but were directly intended to make her yield to his demands. The threats against the victim stemmed from religious contempt and were aimed at forcing subjugation through conversion, thereby establishing the act as an anti-Hindu hate crime. The Muslim perpetrators also threatened to expose the victim's photos and videos to the victim’s family and community unless she complied with their demands. This blackmail weaponised her fear and shame to enforce submission and conversion, a tactic designed to crush her Hindu spirit and identity. Such actions plainly manifest a religiously motivated intention to dominate, silence, and erase the victim’s Hindu identity—confirming this crime as an overt anti-Hindu hate crime fuelled by religious malice. Given that this case fulfils all the criteria of a religiously motivated offence—deceptive identity concealment, sexual exploitation targeting religious identity, coercion to convert, and blackmail—it has been added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when an event occurs or when the victim's ordeal begins, rather than when it gets reported by the media. It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date based on when the incident was reported in the media: 6th December 2025.