Hindu woman deceived into marriage by a Muslim man posing as Hindu; assaulted and seperated from her toddler when she resisted

Case ID : d3272a5 | Location : Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 21 January, 2026

Case ID : d3272a5

Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India

21 January, 2026

Hindu woman deceived into marriage by a Muslim man posing as Hindu; assaulted and seperated from her toddler when she resisted

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Case Summary

A Hindu woman from Tilhari in the Gorabazar police station area reported that she was deceived into a marriage after a Muslim man concealed his identity and presented himself as a Hindu named Raj. The matter came to light when she became suspicious about his real name and religion and checked his documents. According to the woman’s statement and police records, the accused, identified as Arbaaz Ansari of Raza Chowk in Adhartal, met her while posing as a Hindu man named Raj. She said he befriended her, drew her into a relationship, and persuaded her to marry him while continuing to hide his identity. She stated that she later noticed suspicious behaviour and found documents that revealed that “Raj” was in fact Arbaaz Ansari. When she confronted him, she said she was threatened and intimidated. The accused also assaulted her and also forcibly took away her three-month-old child from her. After this, the woman approached the Gorabazar police station and submitted her complaint, seeking strict legal action. Police said they recorded her statement, began an investigation, and initiated the process of registering a case against the accused under provisions of the Religious Freedom Act, including sections related to fraud. Following reports of the incident, local residents and members of Hindu organisations gathered outside the police station and demanded immediate action. Police deployed additional personnel in the area to maintain order and arrested the accused.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The incident has been added to the tracker under the category- 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 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. This case is recorded as a hate crime against a Hindu woman because the harm begins with identity fraud that specifically targets her religious identity. The man did not approach her openly as who he was. He presented himself as a Hindu, used a Hindu name, and sustained that false identity long enough to secure an intimate relationship and marriage. That is not a neutral deception. It is a faith-coded tactic that exploits a Hindu woman’s trust and expectations around marrying within her community. The decisive religious marker is the deliberate adoption of a Hindu name and persona to gain access to a Hindu woman. When the relationship is built on a manufactured Hindu identity, the woman’s consent to intimacy and marriage is shaped by a false religious premise. This makes the abuse inseparable from her religious identity, because the deception is designed around crossing that boundary without informed choice. The coercive element deepens the hate component after the truth emerges. The woman reported threats and intimidation when she protested, which shows that the deception was maintained through fear once exposure became likely. This transforms the act from a private betrayal into targeted coercion, where a Hindu woman is pushed to accept the outcome of the fraud and stay silent. Such cases also create wider community harm. When Hindu identity is imitated to access Hindu women, and the woman is threatened for resisting, it signals the vulnerability of Hindu women to organised deceit and coercion in intimate settings. For these reasons, the case is documented as a religiously motivated targeting of a Hindu woman through identity concealment and a changed name, followed by intimidation to suppress disclosure. Disclaimer: For documentation purposes, the Hinduphobia Tracker has recorded the incident date as the date on which the case was first reported. The victim’s ordeal appears to have unfolded over a period of time, but the available reports do not specify an exact day for when the deception, intimidation, or other key events first began. To maintain consistency and avoid inserting an unverified date, the reporting date has been used as the incident date placeholder. Though the Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents according to when the victim’s suffering began rather than when the story entered public reporting, this entry follows the reporting date only because the actual start date is not reliably stated. If a precise date of occurrence is later confirmed through the FIR, court records, or other reliable documentation, the entry will be updated accordingly.