Hindu woman pressured to convert to Islam, forced to wear burqa and recite Kalma by Muslim man faking Hindu identity
Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India 
29 July, 2023
Case Summary
In Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman named Rekha was deceived into a relationship, sexually exploited and converted to Islam for nikah by a Muslim man named Firoz, who pretended to be a Hindu. The victim, Rekha, was a resident of Talpur Khurd of Rorawar police station area. She was divorced and was struggling financially while living with her seven-year-old son. Due to financial difficulties, she was actively seeking employment. In mid-2023, her friend Hindu Hina assured her of getting a job and took her to a meat factory located in Alka Park. There, she came into contact with the Muslim accused, Firoz, who introduced himself as a Hindu man named Rakesh. The accused gradually gained her trust while promising her a job. He later took her to a friend’s room, where he gave her a cold drink laced with intoxicants. Thereafter, he raped her and recorded obscene videos of her. After the assault, the accused revealed his true identity as Firoz and that he was a Muslim. He used the recorded footage to blackmail her, subjecting her to repeated sexual exploitation over nearly three years while threatening to make the videos public. Exploiting her fear and vulnerability, he forced her to convert to Islam and, with the assistance of his associates and a cleric, pressured her for nikah (Islamic marriage). He also changed her name to Aaliya, and forced her to observe Islamic religious practices, including namaz, kalma and fasting. During this period, it was also revealed that Firoz was already married. When the victim became pregnant, she was coerced into aborting the child through tablets. She was confined in a house and was given death threats, including harm to her minor son. The accused later abandoned her. When she protested, the accused threatened to have her slaughtered in a slaughterhouse, leaving her terrified. After the accused temporarily left for Haryana, the victim approached the Aligarh Senior Superintendent of Police with her child and submitted a written complaint seeking justice. As of the date of writing this report, the police had initiated an investigation into charges including rape, fraud, blackmail, intimidation and forced religious conversion against the accused. Police stated that further legal action would be taken after the investigation.
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 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 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. The other sub-category selected here is - Forced conversion before marriage, with the tertiary category being - Forced to follow non-Hindu religious practices and Forced to do nikah. In such cases, a non-Hindu man is in a relationship with a Hindu woman when the pressure to convert her religion begins to manifest. 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, however, at some point during the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts to force the victim to convert her religion and give up her Hindu religious identity. 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 the situations, the methods used to force the victim to convert her religion often revolve around force-feeding beef, forcing her to wear hijab, forcing her to read the Kalma or even pressurizing the victim to do ‘Nikah’, which is marriage under Islamic law, with a prerequisite being conversion to Islam. Cases where a Hindu woman consensually converts to Islam in a relationship will be left out of the hate crime database, even though it could be argued in several cases that the conversion was a result of religious brainwashing. The other sub-category selected here is - Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is blackmailed to convert her religion, owing to her religious identity of being a Hindu. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim, however, there could be cases where the relationship is not consensual and the non-Hindu man starts blackmailing a Hindu woman to convert her religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu woman is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to her or her family, threats of violence etc. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman named Rekha was deceived into a relationship, sexually exploited and converted to Islam for nikah by a Muslim man named Firoz, who pretended to be a Hindu Firstly, the accused deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with a Hindu woman. This itself is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, he exploited her trust, targeting her under false pretences. This indicates a premeditated intent to manipulate her based on her religious background. In cases like these, the tactic of adopting a false Hindu identity to manipulate and "ensnare" a Hindu individual is not just an act of personal betrayal but can also be interpreted as an expression of disdain or disregard for Hinduism and its customs that reflects a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. Secondly, after gradually gaining her trust, the accused took the victim to a house where he drugged her and raped her while recording obscene videos. These acts were not random or isolated crimes. The recordings were later used as tools of blackmail, enabling prolonged sexual exploitation and domination. The sexual violence and subsequent coercion functioned to humiliate and subjugate a Hindu woman, reducing her ability to resist further abuse, including religious conversion. The target was not the victim as an individual, but her Hindu identity. The specific focus on her Hindu identity in the commission of these acts highlights the religious hatred underlying the crime, making it a religiously motivated hate crime. Thirdly, in Islam, marriage to a non-Muslim partner is prohibited, which is why she was forcibly converted to Islam for nikah. This shows that the Muslim perpetrator specifically targeted the Hindu victim because of his religious animosity. Often in such cases, sexual violence serves a dual purpose: physical subjugation and religious humiliation. The intention was to break the victim down, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, so that she could be converted. This was not random violence; it was systematic, targeted, and rooted in religious animosity. Fourth, forcing a Hindu woman to abandon her faith and adopt another religion constituted a direct attack on her religious identity and dignity. It was not a matter of personal choice; it was coercion rooted in hostility towards the victim's Hindu identity. Such an attempt reflects religious animosity because the act was not simply about personal differences but about erasing the victim’s Hindu faith, making it a religiously motivated crime. Fifthly, the accused forced the victim to wear a burqa, change her name to Aaliya, and compelled her to observe Islamic religious practices such as reciting the kalma and performing namaz. These actions symbolised the deliberate dismantling of her previous Hindu identity and the imposition of an Islamic one. Such manipulation reflects the deeper intent to sever the victim’s ties with her community and to normalise her new identity as a Muslim. It symbolised the effort to overwrite her Hindu identity and forcibly assimilate her into practices of the Islamic faith. This again glaringly demonstrates the religiously motivated nature of the crime. Sixth, when the victim resisted continued abuse and objected to the coercion, the accused threatened her with slaughter, explicitly invoking violence to instil fear and ensure compliance. Such threats were not incidental but deeply symbolic, intended to terrorise and dehumanise her for resisting religious subjugation. The accused later abandoned the victim, which further proves that he was never interested in a genuine relationship with a Hindu woman, instead his only goal was sexual exploitation and religious conversion. Such actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. Such acts were not merely personal crimes; they were rooted in a desire to dominate and erase the religious identity of the victim. Since such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case have specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began, though it is mentioned that she came into contact with the accused in July 2023. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date, 30 July 2023, as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on 30 January 2026, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint registered
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
