Hindu woman sexually exploited by Muslim politician wearing kalava and posing as Hindu; accused targeted 300 Hindu women for prostitution

Case ID : d32734a | Location : Basti, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 25 January, 2022

Case ID : d32734a

Basti, Uttar Pradesh, India

25 January, 2022

Hindu woman sexually exploited by Muslim politician wearing kalava and posing as Hindu; accused targeted 300 Hindu women for prostitution

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Wears symbols of Hinduism

Pattern of targeting Hindu women

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

In Basti, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship and sexually exploited by a Muslim politician named Ajfarul Haq, who belonged to the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) party, an anti-Hindu radical Islamic party. The accused deceived the victim by wearing a kalava and pretending to be a Hindu man named Prince. He also brutalised the woman and similarly targeted three hundred Hindu women for prostitution. According to reports, the victim originally worked at a private hospital in the Basti district. In January 2022, she met Ajfarul, who was then posing as Prince. The accused lured her with the promise of a job at a good hospital and obtained her mobile number. After this, he lured her into a love affair and then brutalised her by sexually exploiting her under the pretext of marriage. He even tied a sacred thread (kalava) around his wrist to prevent her from suspecting anything. One day, when the woman discovered that he was a Muslim, she distanced herself. The victim stated that when she learned the truth about his real identity, she was threatened with death by the accused. He also threatened to kidnap the victim's brother and kill her family, forcing the woman to go to him. The woman then went to Ajfarul's house to complain about him. There, Ajfarul and his brothers gang-raped her. Distressed by this, she filed a case against Ajfarul at the Basti police station. Subsequently, the dark deeds of the accused began to unravel. The case extended beyond rape and deception. Investigations revealed that the accused systematically targeted three hundred Hindu women and blackmailed them into prostitution. Ajfarul also had links to suspicious organisations based abroad, which became a major subject of police investigation. After the victim's complaint, the police began looking for the accused. Deputy Superintendent of Police Satyendra Bhushan Tiwari stated that a reward of 25,000 rupees had been announced for the accused, Ajfarul Haq, who had been absconding for a long time. However, the Basti police managed to arrest him in Mumbai. Following this, the police began investigating whether this was a major conversion syndicate or a case of terrorist financing. Akhilesh Singh, district president of the Vishwa Hindu Mahasangh, called for strict action against such individuals. Ajfarul Haq had more than 20 cases registered against him under serious sections. Deputy Superintendent of Police Satyendra Bhushan Tiwari said, "This includes heinous crimes like robbery, extortion, fraud, and now rape. He had been on the run for quite some time and was constantly changing his location. The Basti Special Weapons and Tactics team and police surveillance set a trap. Now he is behind bars. The deceiver was very cunning. Based on technical input, he was arrested in Bandra, Mumbai." Tiwari also stated that Ajfarul would be taken on remand to uncover his entire network. Vishwa Hindu Mahasangh leader Akhilesh Singh demanded "bulldozer action" and the harshest punishment for the accused. He said, "This was an organised form of 'love jihad,' and it would not be tolerated at all."

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. The subcategory selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary categories selected are- Name changed, Wears symbol of Hinduism and Pattern of targeting Hindu women. 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 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 was a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime as a Hindu woman was religiously profiled, lured into a relationship and sexually exploited and brutalised by a Muslim man posing as a Hindu. The accused also targeted 300 Hindu women and forced them into prostitution. Firstly, the perpetrator's act of deception by posing as a Hindu by changing his name and wearing a kalava demonstrated a clear bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By hiding his true Muslim identity and adopting Hindu symbols like the kalava, the Muslim man manipulated the Hindu woman's trust even more deeply and targeted her under false pretences, indicating a premeditated effort to exploit her based on her religious background. This constituted a direct violation of her right to informed consent regarding whom she chose to 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 and use sacred Hindu symbols 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 were 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 of false Hindu identity, the Hindu woman was sexually exploited under the pretext of marriage 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 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 Ajfarul Haq's true Muslim identity and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen affiliation, she was threatened with death, and even her brother and family faced threats of kidnapping and murder, clearly intended to silence her and force submission to ongoing sexual exploitation. These threats extended to her Hindu family amplified the religious animosity, as they represented a broader assault on her entire Hindu household to intimidate and subjugate them collectively for her resistance. This violent reaction to exposure of his religious deception underscored a religiously motivated offence, where the accused targeted her Hindu identity from the outset and resorted to family-wide threats to maintain control. News reports also revealed that Ajfarul Haq targeted several Hindu women, nearly 300, in a similar manner by posing as a Hindu, luring them into relationships, sexually exploiting them, and forcing them into prostitution. This showcased a clear pattern in which Hindu women were targeted and seen as sexual objects by the Muslim perpetrator, who deceived them, exploited them sexually, and forced them into prostitution, essentially dehumanising Hindu women as mere material to be enjoyed and exploited. Such systematic religious profiling, selecting victims exclusively based on their Hindu identity for deception, violation, and trafficking, established this as a textbook anti-Hindu hate crime, where the victims' faith was the deliberate trigger for their dehumanisation and subjugation. When the victim went to Ajfarul's house to complain about his actions to his family, she was gang-raped by Ajfarul and his brothers. This assault went beyond mere physical gratification; it constituted targeted religious profiling and sexual violence against a Hindu woman specifically for her religious identity, making it a clear case of religiously motivated rape and thereby a hate crime. Additionally, considering the accused was an All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen politician, this crime aligned with All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen's notorious history of anti-Hindu politics, exemplified by leaders like Akbaruddin Owaisi, who in a 2012 speech in Nirmal, Telangana, openly threatened Hindus by saying they could be "sorted out in 15 minutes" if police were absent, inciting violence and revealing deep communal animosity. All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen's track record included repeated anti-Hindu rhetoric, such as Owaisi's derogatory remarks against Hindu deities, calls for "jihad" in religious and political contexts, and provocative speeches stoking religious tensions, like his Nizamabad rally outbursts, labelling Hindus as aggressors while defending Muslim extremism. As a party cadre, Ajfarul Haq's actions reflected this ingrained ideology, weaponising deception against Hindu women to assert religious dominance, thereby framing his offences as an extension of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen's religiously motivated hostility toward Hindus. Such targeting and hatred for Hindu women resulted from doctrinal animosity against non-Muslims ingrained in Islamic theology, which preaches intolerance and dehumanisation of non-Muslims, including Hindus. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records the date of an incident based on when a crime occurs or when the victim's ordeal begins, rather than when the media reports it. However, in this case, the earliest media report was published on 26 January 2026, but did not state the exact date when the victim's ordeal began. Other reports only stated that she met him in January 2022. Henceforth, based on this information, an indicative date of 26 January 2022 is selected as the indicative incident date for documentation purposes only. Reports stated that 300 Hindu women, excluding the current case's victim, were targeted. Therefore, the total victim count is recorded as 301. In this case, even though the reports stated that Ajfarul's brothers also gang-raped the victim, since the exact number of brothers was not specified, the perpetrator count was recorded as 1.