Hindu woman lured into marriage, forcibly converted to Islam, and pressured to do halala by Muslim man pretending to be Hindu

Case ID : d32739d | Location : Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 14 August, 2025

Case ID : d32739d

Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, India

14 August, 2025

Hindu woman lured into marriage, forcibly converted to Islam, and pressured to do halala by Muslim man pretending to be Hindu

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Forced conversion after marriage

Forced Halala

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

In Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship by a Muslim man, Salim Khan, who posed as a Hindu. The accused also forcibly converted the victim to Islam after marriage. Following this, she was also divorced as per the Triple Talaq tradition, an Islamic divorce system, and was forced to do Halala with a Qazi (Islamic cleric). Halala is an Islamic practice where a woman who has been divorced by her husband, in case she wanted to return to her first husband, had to marry another man and then consummate the marriage with him and get divorced from the second man, only then could she marry back her first husband. According to media reports, the entire case was from the Kotwali police station area of Vidisha district. The accused, Salim Khan, who lived here, first befriended the Hindu woman by hiding his identity and posing as a Hindu. Following this, he became emotionally close to her and then married her. After marriage, he forcibly converted her to Islam. Subsequently, the victim gave birth to a child. After this, the woman was mentally and physically tortured for a long time by the accused. The victim stated that the Muslim accused gave her triple talaq, and after this, she was pressured to do Halala with a Qazi. The woman reported the incident to the police around 11 pm on 23 January 2026. She stated that the entire incident occurred between 15 August 2025 and 26 December 2025. Given the seriousness of the case, the police registered a First Information Report under sections 85 and 351(3) of the Indian Penal Code, 2023, and other sections, and assigned the investigation to Sub-Inspector Mukesh Thakur. Police said the investigation was carried out based on the complainant's statement, documents, and other evidence. At the time of writing this report, the police are closely examining every aspect of the case. The accused, Salim, was arrested, and further action was initiated. Police assured the woman of a fair investigation, while the victim appealed to the administration for justice.

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. The subcategory selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu. 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- Forced conversion after marriage. The tertiary category selected is- Forced Halala. In such cases, a non-Hindu man marries a Hindu woman, and the force/pressure to convert to any Abrahamic faith, like Islam, begins after marriage. In such cases, typically, two patterns emerge. First, when the relationship is consensual, and the religious identity of the perpetrator is known to the Hindu woman in the relationship. The marriage could be under the Special Marriages Act, where neither parties are required to convert their religion for the marriage to be considered legitimate. While the victim in such cases enters matrimony assuming that religious identity is not a barrier, the non-Hindu man starts to pressure the woman to convert her religion after marriage. The second is when the woman gets into a marriage with the man, pretending to share her faith. Later, when the truth is revealed, the man starts pressuring the woman to convert her religion and give up her religious identity. In both situations, there is application of force by the perpetrator, including the denial of the woman’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the woman is forced/pressured to convert include force-feeding beef, being forced to read the Kalma, being forced to wear a hijab, forced to undergo Halala, etc. There are several instances where, after marriage, the woman voluntarily converts to Islam. Such cases are often argued to be a result of religious brainwashing, however, for the purpose of documenting religiously motivated hate crimes, in the absence of the victim complaining of forced conversion, such cases do not form a part of the database. 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. In this case, the Hindu woman was deceived into a marriage by a Muslim man, Salim Khan, pretending to be Hindu. After this, she was forcibly converted to Islam, divorced through Triple Talaq, and pressured into Halala with a Qazi. Firstly, the 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 her based on her religious background. This constituted a direct violation of her right to informed consent regarding whom she chose to marry, 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 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, conversion, and practices like Triple Talaq and Halala in mind. Such targeted victimisation based on religion demonstrated a fundamental disregard for Hinduism and exposed deeper animosity toward Hindus and their beliefs. The subsequent forced conversion, Islamic divorce, and Halala pressure further entrenched the crime as religiously motivated exploitation aimed at erasing the victim's Hindu identity. The accused also forcibly converted the Hindu victim to Islam after marriage, stripping away her religious autonomy and imposing an alien faith through coercion, revealing the perpetrator's deep religious animosity towards Hinduism. Salim Khan did not merely suggest a change; after deceiving her into marriage, he compelled her to abandon her lifelong beliefs, rituals, and identity as a Hindu, thrusting Islamic practices upon her against her will. This violation treated her sacred spiritual world and her faith as disposable, erasing who she was at her core. Such forced conversion in relationships exposes the ugly truth: she was never seen as a genuine partner out of love, but as a target chosen specifically for her Hindu identity, a trophy for religious conquest rather than a person to cherish. After using her for conversion, Salim discarded her through Triple Talaq, an Islamic divorce that left her shattered and abandoned, then pressured her into the dehumanising Halala ritual that included marrying a Qazi, consummating that marriage, divorcing him, only to potentially return to Salim. This cruel sequence reduced a Hindu woman to an object, her body and soul exploited in a calculated cycle of control that mocked her dignity. The sheer brutality of forcing a Hindu woman through such degradation underscores the perpetrator's contempt: she endured unimaginable trauma not as an equal, but as a mere instrument of his religious agenda, her pain amplifying the religiously motivated hatred that drove every step of this crime. In summary, this case altogether demonstrated that religious animosity towards the Hindu woman and her faith identity was the main motivator of the crime. Therefore, this case was added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: In this case, while Salim Khan is identified as the main perpetrator, there is also substantial involvement by the Qazi, who, along with Salim, pressured the victim to undergo halala. Accordingly, the perpetrator count is recorded as two (2).