Minor Hindu girl deceived, sexually exploited and harassed for marriage by Muslim man faking Hindu identity

Case ID : cb28278 | Location : Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 11 December, 2023

Case ID : cb28278

Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India

11 December, 2023

Minor Hindu girl deceived, sexually exploited and harassed for marriage by 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

Case Summary

In the Muradnagar colony of Ghaziabad district, Uttar Pradesh, a minor Hindu girl was deceived, sexually exploited and blackmailed for marriage by a Muslim man named Mohammad Adil, who pretended to be a Hindu. According to the complaint filed by the victim, she came into contact with the accused about two years ago, in 2023, when she was just 16 years old. The accused messaged her on Instagram by pretending to be a Hindu man named Ajay Thakur. He gradually befriended her online and later persuaded her to meet him at a park, where he took photographs of her and sexually exploited her. The victim later discovered that his real name was Mohammad Adil and that he was a Muslim, after which she cut off all contact with him. However, the accused continued to pressure her to marry him and threatened her with dire consequences when she refused. The accused later circulated objectionable photos and videos of the victim on social media and posted derogatory comments on her profile, causing severe distress. As a result, the victim became fearful and stopped leaving her home due to social stigma and intimidation. Subsequently, she filed a complaint at the Modinagar police station, based on which the police registered a case and arrested Mohammad Adil. 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- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within this, the subcategory selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary category selected in this case 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 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 other subcategory selected in this case 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 a hate crime. This case has been added to the tracker because a minor Hindu girl was lured into a relationship by a Muslim man, who pretended to be Hindu. Firstly, the perpetrator deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with a Hindu girl. This itself is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, he exploited her trust, targeting her under false pretences. This indicates a premeditated intent to manipulate her based on her religious background. In cases like these, the tactic of adopting a false Hindu identity to manipulate and "ensnare" a Hindu individual is not just an act of personal betrayal but can also be interpreted as an expression of disdain or disregard for Hinduism and its customs that reflects a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. Secondly, through deliberate religious deception, the Hindu girl was sexually exploited by the Muslim perpetrator. This was not a random act of sexual exploitation; it was a targeted assault driven by religious bias, aimed at singling out and violating a Hindu girl because of her religious identity. Such acts of exploitation by manipulation and religious profiling clearly underline the religiously motivated nature of this crime. Thirdly, it is further important to note here that the victim was a minor, which means the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of consenting to a relationship or marriage, and the Muslim perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Additionally, any supposed consent given by the minor is already considered invalid under the POCSO Act. Since this case exemplifies the use of coercion and manipulation to sexually exploit a Hindu minor, it is a blatant act of religious hate, which is why it has been documented here in the hate tracker. This is not an isolated incident but part of a broader pattern of religiously motivated hate crimes. The Hinduphobia tracker has documented multiple cases where non-Hindu men pretended to be Hindu to befriend Hindu women for sexual exploitation or religious conversion. For example, in Bahadarabad, Haridwar district, Uttarakhand, a Hindu woman was blackmailed and raped by a Muslim man named Iqbal, who had faked a Hindu identity to entrap her. Similarly, in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was deceived and sexually exploited by a Muslim man named Sufian, who impersonated a Hindu man on social media to lure her. In another case in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman, mother of a six-year-old child, was deceived, forcibly converted to Islam, and kept in captivity. The perpetrator, Ehsan Hussain, pretended to be Hindu and trapped her in a fabricated love affair, coerced her into abandoning her faith, renamed her Khushboo Khatun, and forcibly married her before relocating her to Chennai. These incidents collectively highlight a pattern in which Hindu women are specifically targeted through deception for sexual exploitation and religious conversion, underscoring a systematic hostility towards Hindu individuals and their religious beliefs. Given that this case meets the parameters of a religiously motivated crime, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. 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 2023. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date—12 December 2023—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 12 December 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.