Hindu woman sexually exploited under pretext of marriage, and forced to wear Islamic amulets by Muslim man posing as Hindu

Case ID : d326e96 | Location : Karnal, Haryana, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 4 June, 2024

Case ID : d326e96

Karnal, Haryana, India

4 June, 2024

Hindu woman sexually exploited under pretext of marriage, and forced to wear Islamic amulets by Muslim man posing as Hindu

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

Victim says she was brainwashed/groomed

Case Summary

In Karnal, Haryana, a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship under the false pretext of marriage and sexually exploited by a Muslim man named Ghaffar, who pretended to be a Hindu man named Monu Rana. The accused also physically assaulted the Hindu woman and forced her to wear Islamic amulets (taabeez). According to media reports, this incident came to light when the victim revealed her ordeal. She is a 34-year-old divorcee and mother of a 14-year-old girl. The accused lured her into a relationship with a promise of marriage. Under this deception, he sexually exploited her, recorded her obscene videos through hidden cameras, and began blackmailing the victim. The victim also suffered physical assault from the accused during this time. The victim explained, "I married when I was 18 years old. I had a daughter with my husband, who is now about 14 years old. Our relationship did not work out well, so I divorced him before the COVID-19 pandemic. I continued working as a beautician to support myself and my daughter." The victim said she first learned beauty parlour and salon work. An acquaintance told her about a salon behind the old bus stand, the shop of the accused Ghaffar, which regularly attracted female clients. Based on this information, she called the salon owner on 5 June 2024 to discuss client matters. The woman said, "After our conversation, the accused saved my number and connected with me on social media using an account named Monu Rana. He liked my photos and videos and continued to increase contact. Within a few days, the conversation continued to escalate." The victim stated that the accused knew she was going through personal difficulties. Taking advantage of this, he offered her work at his salon, stating the back of the salon was vacant. He said both of them would share the earnings equally. As their trust grew, she began working there. About a month later, in July 2024, the accused proposed marriage, saying he would not marry her immediately but would do so after some time and also take responsibility for her daughter. Convinced by this promise, the victim began living with the accused. Subsequently, she learned that Monu Rana was actually Ghaffar, a Muslim. When the victim confronted the accused, he initially kept claiming that he was Rana, not Muslim. Following this, the accused humiliated her by making inappropriate remarks about her character before his friends. The victim also said that the accused assaulted her for questioning his identity and refusing to answer her calls. He also beat her daughter. He took the victim's obscene videos from a camera installed in the house and saved them on his phone and pen drive. He continued to blackmail her using these videos and photos. The woman stated that the accused also mentally abused her. Citing an illness, he made her wear an amulet around her neck, promising it would heal her. The victim stated that this was done to brainwash her and keep her under his control. Furthermore, she also learned that he was seeing another woman. Whenever she asked him about this, he would always avoid the topic. Deeply troubled by all this, the victim reached out to the local police station and filed a complaint against the accused. Following this, a case was registered against Ghaffar, and he was arrested by the police. The Station House Officer of Karnal Women's Police Station, Kanupriya, stated that the case involved rape. Based on the woman's complaint, a case was registered against the accused youth. He was arrested on 5 January 2026. The court sent him to jail. The matter was currently under investigation.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case is being 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 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 is- Brainwashed and/or Groomed. The tertiary categories are- 'Rape and Sexual assault/harassment' and 'Victim says she was brainwashed/groomed'. 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. In this case, the Hindu woman was deceived into a relationship under the pretext of marriage by a Muslim man pretending to be Hindu. After this, she was sexually exploited and pressured to wear Islamic amulets. The victim was also subjected to physical assault, humiliation and blackmail by the Muslim accused. Firstly, the perpetrator's act of deception by posing as a Hindu demonstrated clear bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By hiding his true identity, the Muslim man manipulated the Hindu woman's trust and targeted her under false pretences, indicating a premeditated effort to exploit the woman based on her religious background. This constituted a direct violation of her right to informed consent regarding whom she chooses to marry or be in a relationship with, as well as an infringement upon her religious beliefs. Thus, the perpetrator's deliberate decision to hide his religious identity strongly underscored the religious motive behind this crime. In such instances, identity concealment is not just a deceptive tactic for personal reasons but a calculated strategy rooted in religious profiling and targeting. The accused knew that the victim, being Hindu, would likely refuse his advances if she knew his real identity, and he circumvented this by lying, which directly pointed to a religiously driven intent. This deception reflected a larger pattern where Hindu women are specifically singled out using false identities by Muslim men, often with coercion or conversion in mind. Such targeted victimisation based on religion demonstrated a fundamental disregard for Hinduism and exposed deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. Secondly, through deliberate deception, the Hindu woman was sexually exploited by the Muslim perpetrator under the false pretext of marrying her. 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 woman because of her religious identity. Such acts of exploitation by manipulation and religious profiling clearly underlined the religiously motivated nature of this crime. Furthermore, when the victim discovered the accused's Muslim identity, she was subjected to physical assault; even her child was beaten, making it clear that the Muslim accused wanted to deliberately deceive her and, when his identity was revealed, chose violence as a tool to silence the victim and make her submit to his demands of sexual exploitation, marking it as a religiously motivated offence. Following this, the victim was pressured to wear Islamic amulets under the pretext of curing diseases. The victim also said this was used to brainwash her. Although the victim nowhere stated that the accused forced her to convert, the introduction of Islamic amulets and making her wear them under the pretext of curing diseases showcased that he subtly wanted to bring Islamic practices into her life and forcibly introduce her to Islam. Such forced wearing of amulets under shady pretexts showcased a concerted effort to manipulate and brainwash a Hindu victim. Such acts are done to keep the woman under the accused's control. Additionally, the accused blackmailed the Hindu woman by secretly recording obscene videos of her during sexual exploitation using hidden cameras in the house, saving them on his phone and a pen drive to maintain control over her. This ruthless tactic served as a tool to silence her protests, force submission to ongoing abuse, and prevent her from escaping or seeking help, trapping the vulnerable victim in a cycle of fear and coercion tied to her religious identity. By weaponising these intimate recordings, the perpetrator ensured her compliance, amplifying the trauma inflicted on a Hindu woman already deceived and violated under false pretences. The fact that the accused left the woman and refused to marry her after exploiting her while posing as a Hindu showcased that he never really wanted a genuine relationship with her; rather, it was just a way to exploit and violate a Hindu woman sexually for her religious identity, making it a clear case of religiously motivated crime. In summary, this case clearly demonstrated an anti-Hindu hate crime fuelled by animosity towards the Hindu victim and her faith identity. Therefore, this case is being documented in the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records crimes based on when the victim's ordeal begins rather than when it is reported by the media. In this case, media reports specified that the date when she met the accused was 5 June 2024. After that, her entire ordeal unfolded: deception into a relationship by posing as a Hindu, sexual exploitation under the false pretext of marriage, and forcing her to wear Islamic amulets, followed later. Hence, 5 June 2024 is selected as the incident date, marking the beginning of her suffering.