Hindu man tricked into marriage, tortured to convert and forced into circumcision by Muslim woman in Rae Bareli, UP
Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh, India 
2 February, 2021
Case Summary
A Hindu man from Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh, was lured into a love affair and deceived into marriage. His Muslim wife, Rukhsar, held him captive, forced him into conversion and had him undergo circumcision. According to the complaint, the victim’s name was Bhupendra Pratap Chauhan. He had been working in Dubai since 2019. During this time, in 2021, he began communicating with Rukhsar, a Muslim woman from Rae Bareli. She ensnared him in a love trap and repeatedly invited him to Rae Bareli. Victim Bhupendra stated that when he returned to India in 2022, Rukhsar lured him to her home and held him hostage. Bhupendra was kept confined in a room for nearly four years. During this time, he was beaten, his nails were pulled out, and he was given electric shocks. Rukhsar and her family pressured Bhupendra to convert to Islam. When Bhupendra refused, he was circumcised and forcibly converted. A Maulana was called in, and Rukhsar was also married to the victim. Bhupendra’s name was changed to a Muslim name. Even after this, he was kept confined to the house and was not allowed to go out. The victim, Bhupendra, stated that on 30 January 2026, he managed to escape from Rukhsar’s house and told his family about his ordeal. The family filed a complaint at the police station. Based on the complaint, the police registered a case against the accused woman, Rukhsar, and her uncles, Pappu and Nanhu alias Mohammad. The victim stated that Rukhsar continued to call him and pressured him to return. Bhupendra and his family were receiving death threats. Bhupendra also stated that the accused were an organised gang that had converted many people.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under various categories due to the several religious markers present. The first primary category selected is- Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women. The first subcategory selected under this is- Forced to convert after marriage, and within this, the tertiary category selected is- Forced circumcision. In such cases, a non-Hindu woman marries a Hindu man and the force/pressure against the Hindu man to convert to Islam begins after marriage. In such cases, the marriage is consensual in most cases and often, there is no element of the non-Hindu woman hiding her religious identity. 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 woman starts to pressure the Hindu man to convert to Islam after marriage. In such cases, there is application of force/pressure by the perpetrator, including, denial of the man’s religious rights. Some of the means by which the man is forced/pressured to convert include forcing/pressurizing the man to involuntarily consume beef, pressurizing/forcing to read the Kalma, forced circumcision, forced to go to the mosque, etc. There are several instances where after marriage, the man 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 second subcategory selected is- Assaulted for refusal to convert. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the Hindu man faces assault after he refuses to convert and change his religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu woman or her family. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu woman known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu woman or her family starts forcing/pressurizing the Hindu man to convert to Islam and upon his refusal, assaults the victim. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. Cases where the Hindu man converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force or threat, are not considered a part of the hate tracker, even though, it may be argued that the man was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. The other primary category included in the case is: Predatory Proselytisation. The sub-category selected under it is: Harassment, threats, coercion for conversion. Harassment covers a wide range of behaviours of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour that demeans, humiliates, and intimidates a person, including threats and coercion. Harassment and threats, in this case, find their root on discriminatory grounds, which has the effect of nullifying a person’s rights or infringing upon his freedom to exercise his right specifically owing to the victim’s religious identity. Verbal and physical threats and psychological or physical harassment are often used against Hindu victims because they choose to practice their professed religion. Religious harassment also includes forced and involuntary conversions by harassment, threats or coercion. Coercion includes intimidatory tactics like force-feeding a Hindu victim beef to convert to another religion, forceful circumcision, etc. In several cases documented, non-Hindu perpetrators or those who harbour specific animosity towards Hinduism, harass victims simply based on their religious identity. Such cases often also include harassment to ensure the Hindu victim abandons his/her professed religion and adopts the religion of the perpetrator. The other category selected is- Attack not resulting in death. Within it, the sub-category selected is- Attacked for refusal to convert. When there is pressure, threat or coercion employed upon the Hindu victim to convert to a different religion, in several cases, the victim refuses to succumb to the pressure/threats. Once the victim refuses, the perpetrator proceeds to attack/assault the victim owing to his/her refusal to convert. In such cases, the pressure/threat/intimidation/coercion/violence itself is driven by animosity towards the victim’s Hindu faith. The violence, then, is another hate crime driven by the victim’s refusal to abandon his professed faith, Hinduism, and convert to the religion of a non-Hindu perpetrator. Since the victim’s faith is at the heart of the pressure to convert and the ensuing violence towards the victim, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. It has multiple clear religious markers demonstrating that the victim was targeted, coerced, and subjected to violence for the purpose of forced religious conversion, making the crime inherently rooted in religious hostility and coercive proselytisation. The first marker is the deliberate concealment and deception used to initiate the relationship. The accused established a romantic relationship and used emotional manipulation to draw the Hindu victim into a position of vulnerability and isolation. Such deception is significant because it was not incidental but served as the entry point for subsequent coercion aimed at religious conversion. The concealment of intent and use of emotional dependency reflects a calculated effort to target the victim because of his religious identity. The second marker is the use of confinement, torture, and physical violence to break the victim’s resistance and force conversion. The victim was held captive for years, beaten, subjected to electric shocks, and physically mutilated through the pulling of nails. Such sustained violence demonstrates that the objective was not merely personal control but the systematic destruction of the victim’s ability to resist abandoning his Hindu faith. Violence used specifically to compel religious change constitutes one of the strongest indicators of religiously motivated hate crime. The third marker is the forced circumcision, which is a permanent and irreversible religious imposition. Circumcision in this context was not a medical procedure but a symbolic and physical act intended to mark the victim’s religious conversion. Forcing such a procedure on a Hindu man against his will represents a direct assault on his bodily autonomy and religious identity and serves as an instrument of religious domination. The fourth marker is the involvement of a Maulana and the formal imposition of Islamic religious identity through forced conversion and renaming. Changing the victim’s name and compelling him to adopt a new religious identity demonstrates an attempt to erase his original Hindu identity and replace it with another faith through coercion. This reflects a clear intent to sever the victim from his religious roots and impose a different religious identity by force. The continued threats and pressure even after the victim escaped further reinforce the coercive religious motive. Attempts to force his return and maintain control indicate that the perpetrators sought to ensure the permanence of the conversion and prevent the victim from reclaiming his Hindu identity and freedom. Taken together, the use of deception, prolonged captivity, physical torture, forced circumcision, religious renaming, and threats establishes a clear pattern of coercive religious conversion. These acts were not incidental violence but were directed at the victim specifically because he was Hindu, intending to erase his religious identity and impose another faith. This establishes the incident as a religiously motivated hate crime. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when the crime occurred or when the victim’s ordeal began, rather than when it was reported. In this case, the victim stated that his ordeal began in 2021, when he was lured into the relationship and subsequently confined and subjected to forced conversion. However, since the exact date in 2021 is not specified in available reports, the date has been recorded as 3 February, corresponding to the date of media reporting, while the year has been retained as 2021 to reflect when the victim’s ordeal actually began. This indicative date remains subject to revision if more precise information emerges.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 0
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 1
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
