Hindu woman deceived into relationship, sexually exploited, forcibly made to recite kalma, and wear hijab by Muslim man posing as Hindu

Case ID : d32756c | Location : Kishanganj, Bihar, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 28 January, 2017

Case ID : d32756c

Kishanganj, Bihar, India

28 January, 2017

Hindu woman deceived into relationship, sexually exploited, forcibly made to recite kalma, and wear hijab by Muslim man posing as Hindu

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Forced conversion after marriage

Forced to read Kalma

Forced to wear Hijab

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

In a case of deception and exploitation, Srijita Chatterjee, a young Hindu woman from Kishanganj, Bihar, was misled by Ismail Hossain, a Muslim man she met online who presented himself as a Hindu with promises of love and marriage. The victim was forcibly converted to Islam, made to recite the kalma (Islamic declaration of faith), forced to wear a hijab, and brutally assaulted both physically, sexually and psychologically. According to media reports, in 2017, she got in touch with the accused Ismail, a resident of Hyderabad, on Facebook. He then befriended and lured her into a love affair under the promise of marriage. Convinced she was building a genuine future together, Srijita left her home to join him, only to later learn that he was Muslim and had concealed his true identity from the start. Once she was emotionally dependent and isolated, the relationship turned coercive and abusive. After marrying her, Ismail’s family refused to accept her as a Hindu woman and made conversion a condition for staying in the marriage. Under pressure, Srijita recited the kalma (Islamic declaration of faith), signed affidavits, and was renamed Fatema Khatoon, giving up her original name and faith. Her movement was restricted, and she was compelled to adopt a hijab and conform to a new religious identity. The abuse escalated as Srijita sustained physical and psychological mistreatment, being beaten, restrained, threatened, and subjected to sexual violence. Srijita stated that her husband forced her to engage in sexual acts with his friends, both inside the home and outside, against her will. She was treated not as a partner but as property. Any resistance was met with assault. She further stated that one of her pregnancies was forcibly terminated. Eventually, Srijita was served a divorce by the accused and left isolated. She was also rejected by her own family when she sought refuge. At the time of writing this report, she now lives independently in Siliguri, supporting herself through work at a beauty parlour, bearing the lasting impact of the exploitation and loss of her faith, identity, and safety.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category- Crime 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 categories selected are- Forced to read Kalma, Forced to wear Hijab. 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 here 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 constituted a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime, as a Hindu woman was deliberately deceived into a relationship, sexually exploited, and forcibly converted to Islam by a Muslim man named Ismail Hossain, who posed as a Hindu. She was further dehumanised for her faith identity through brutal assaults, hijab imposition, and coercion by his family. Firstly, the perpetrator deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with Srijita Chatterjee, a Hindu woman from Kishanganj, Bihar. This itself was a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, the Muslim perpetrator exploited her trust, targeting her under false pretences of love and marriage. This indicated 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. 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 Muslim identity, and he circumvented this by lying, which directly pointed to a religiously driven intent. Furthermore, after marrying the accused and discovering his Muslim identity, the victim faced intense pressure from Ismail Hossain’s family, who declared conversion to Islam as the sole condition for acceptance in the marriage. Under duress, she was forcibly converted, reciting the kalma and signing affidavits, which exposed deep-seated religious animosity towards her Hindu identity. This predatory act revealed that the accused had profiled and trapped her from the outset due to her faith, with conversion as the ultimate intent. Such forced conversions of Hindu women through coercion stem from profound hostility, amounting to a hate crime by systematically erasing their religious identity and demonstrating contempt for Hinduism. The change of her name to Fatema Khatoon, the recitation of the kalma, the Islamic declaration of faith, and the imposition of the hijab exemplified the forced adoption of Islamic customs to eradicate her Hindu identity entirely and sever her from her cultural roots. This deliberate isolation amplified the perpetrators' hostility, transforming her into a vessel for their faith while punishing her original beliefs. Coupled with physical assaults and psychological abuse, these acts brutalised her specifically for her Hindu identity, cementing the religiously motivated nature of the crime. Moreover, Ismail forcing the victim into sexual relations with his friends, both inside and outside the home, revealed that he never viewed her as a wife but as a mere object for exploitation and conversion. This sexual exploitation went beyond gratification; it aimed to humiliate the Hindu woman due to her religious identity, shatter her spirit, and render her completely submissive to the accused's demands. Such dehumanising degradation underscored his profound contempt for her Hindu origins, reducing her to a tool in a religiously charged vendetta. This highlighted the depth of animosity tied to her faith, marking this incident as a religiously motivated crime. Given that this case meets all parameters of a hate crime, it is being added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when the victim's ordeal began, rather than media reporting dates. In this case, the earliest media report appeared on 29 January 2026, but did not specify the exact date of when the victim's ordeal began. However, it only stated that the victim first met the accused in 2017. An indicative date of 29 January 2017 has thus been selected to mark the beginning of her exploitation. This serves documentation purposes only and remains an estimate.