Hindu minor girl lured under the pretext of offering help by Muslim man posing as Hindu, taken to a hotel and raped thereafter

Case ID : d06cb1f | Location : Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 9 June, 2025

Case ID : d06cb1f

Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

9 June, 2025

Hindu minor girl lured under the pretext of offering help by Muslim man posing as Hindu, taken to a hotel and raped thereafter

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Case Summary

A minor Hindu girl from Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh was raped by a Muslim man posing as a Hindu. The victim left her home on 9th June following a dispute with her mother. She boarded a train bound for Prayagraj, where she encountered an individual who introduced himself as Raju Tiwari. In reality, the man’s true identity was Ashfaq, a resident of Hazaribagh, Jharkhand, who deliberately concealed his background to gain the girl’s trust. Ashfaq offered to help the girl return home, manipulating her vulnerable state. He accompanied her on a bus journey to Kanpur via Fatehpur and subsequently booked a room in a hotel near Ghantaghar. There, he raped the girl. The victim somehow managed to escape and reached a nearby police station. After coming to know about the incident, the police contacted the victim’s family. The accused had fled from the scene by that time. However, the police located him and nabbed him from the cantonment area near Kanpur Central Station. An FIR was filed at the Harbansh Mohalla police station.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the prime category of- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Under this, the sub-category selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu, and 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 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. In this case, the perpetrator, a Muslim man named Ashfaq, deliberately concealed his religious identity and assumed a Hindu identity to befriend a minor Hindu girl and subsequently rape her. The religious motivation behind this crime is evident from the calculated deception employed to entrap the Hindu victim. Such actions clearly demonstrate bias and malicious intent towards the victim's Hindu faith. By misrepresenting his identity, the perpetrator exploited the victim's trust and targeted her under false pretences. Deceiving someone by falsifying one's religious identity is a hate crime, as it is driven by hostility or prejudice against the victim's religion. This not only constitutes a profound breach of personal trust but also represents a calculated exploitation of religious identity to facilitate the crime. Such conduct goes beyond personal betrayal; it demonstrates targeted animosity or prejudice against the victim's Hindu identity. It is important to mention here that the details of this case reveal that the victim was a minor, indicating a lack of consent. It is a well-established fact that children are more susceptible to manipulation since they are still developing emotionally, cognitively, and socially. Their brains are not fully mature, making them more vulnerable. This case demonstrates a calculated strategy in which a vulnerable minor was deliberately targeted by an adult male who concealed his religious identity in order to gain her trust. The exploitation of a child who had run away from home, combined with the use of a false Hindu identity by the accused, reflects a deliberate and manipulative approach that preys upon the unsuspecting. Such acts are not merely crimes of opportunity but indicate a deeper pattern of religiously motivated deception. The abuse of trust and exploitation of religious identity in this context suggest an element of hate crime, particularly when viewed against the backdrop of similar incidents where identity fraud has been used to harm members of a specific religious group. This makes the case not only a serious sexual offence but also part of a broader pattern of religiously motivated targeting. Hence, this case is documented as a hate crime.