Hindu woman lured into marriage, forced to convert to Islam, and offer namaz by Muslim man posing as Hindu

Case ID : d3278b9 | Location : Maharajganj, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 27 January, 2021

Case ID : d3278b9

Maharajganj, Uttar Pradesh, India

27 January, 2021

Hindu woman lured into marriage, forced to convert to Islam, and offer namaz by Muslim man posing as Hindu

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Pattern of targeting Hindu women

Forced conversion after marriage

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Case Summary

In the Sonauli area of Maharajganj district, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was lured into a marriage by a Muslim man identified as Aamir, who posed as a Hindu. The accused married her by deceiving her with his fabricated Hindu identity and later began forcing her to convert to Islam and offer namaz. He also tried to trap another Hindu woman in a marriage in a similar manner. The Hindu victim stated that he introduced himself as a Hindu and married her about five years ago (2021). After the marriage, she came to know that he was Muslim. The Hindu victim stated that this revelation caused her mental distress. She further stated that after marriage, Aamir and his family members continuously pressured her to convert to her religion and offer namaz (Islamic prayer). The Hindu woman stated that she had one son and one daughter with Aamir. She also stated that Aamir was already married to a Muslim woman prior to marrying her, and from that marriage, he had three daughters and one son. Despite this, he presented himself as unmarried and Hindu at the time of marrying the Hindu victim. The Hindu victim further stated that on 28 January 2026, Aamir submitted an application under section 59(1) before the Special Marriage Officer in Maharajganj court in an attempt to marry another Hindu girl. When she came to know about this and opposed it, Aamir assaulted her. She stated that he pressured her to adopt Islamic customs and threatened to kill her. In her complaint, the Hindu victim also named Azmat Ali alias Matali, a resident of Sukrauli, and Keshav, son of Rambelas, also a resident of Sukrauli, stating that they were involved in supporting Aamir in the entire crime. Police confirmed that based on the complaint filed by the Hindu woman, a case had been registered against Aamir under relevant sections of law. The police had started a detailed investigation into the matter, and further action was ongoing.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category here is "Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes". The sub-category here is "Man pretends to be Hindu". The tertiary category here is "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. Another sub-category this case falls under is "Forced conversion after marriage". 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. Another sub-category for this case is "Assault or threat upon refusal to convert" When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces threats or assault after she refuses to convert and change her religious identity owing to pressure/force by the non-Hindu man. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu man known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu man starts pressurizing the Hindu woman to convert to Islam and upon her refusal, assaults or threatens 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 woman 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 woman was brainwashed or threatened to convert to Islam. In this case, the Hindu woman was deceived into a marriage by a Muslim man named Aamir who pretended to be Hindu. After this, she endured continuous pressure to convert to Islam and offer namaz, while he attempted to trap another Hindu woman in a similar manner. Firstly, Aamir's act of deception by posing as a Hindu demonstrated a clear bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By hiding his true Muslim identity, he manipulated the Hindu woman's trust and targeted her under false pretences, indicating a premeditated effort to exploit her based on her religious background. Additionally, the marriage legitimised the relationship in the eyes of the woman and the wider Hindu community. 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, Aamir's deliberate decision to hide his religious identity strongly underscored the religious motive behind this crime. In such instances, identity concealment was not just a deceptive tactic for personal reasons but a calculated strategy rooted in religious profiling and targeting. The accused was aware 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, 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, after the woman discovered the perpetrator's true identity, he coerced her to convert to Islam, adopt Islamic customs, offer namaz, and fully submit, even as he planned to marry another Hindu girl via a court application under section 59(1) on 28 January 2026. This demonstrated that his deception, marriage, and ongoing assaults were carried out with the calculated intention of achieving his underlying objective of religious conversion. Such actions violated the woman's fundamental right to practise her own faith and represented an attempt to strip her of her Hindu identity. They reflected deep-seated religious hostility and disdain towards Hindus and Hinduism, making this a clear case of a religiously motivated offence. Thirdly, the perpetrator systematically targeted Hindu women, as he attempted to trap another Hindu woman in a marriage through a court application, mirroring the very deception he inflicted on this Hindu victim. This repeated behaviour exposed a disturbing pattern of religiously profiling and selectively targeting Hindu women for exploitation and religious conversion, far beyond any isolated lapse. His relentless pursuit of multiple Hindu victims underscored a predatory obsession rooted in their shared faith, treating them as interchangeable objects for spiritual conquest and degradation. Such calculated repetition transformed personal deceit into a serial campaign of religious animosity, marking these acts as hate crimes deliberately aimed at eroding Hindu women's dignity and identity through communal vulnerability. Fourthly, the perpetrator physically assaulted and threatened the Hindu woman to force her conversion to Islam and adherence to Islamic customs like offering namaz, wielding violence as a brutal instrument to shatter her resistance. This savage use of assault and threats revealed the raw depth of his religious zeal, as he sought not just compliance but total obliteration of her Hindu soul, refusing to tolerate her sacred traditions in the face of his dominance. By escalating to physical brutality when persuasion failed, he bared his unyielding contempt for her faith, dehumanising her very essence to impose his religion. This ferocious determination to strip a devoted Hindu woman of her lifelong beliefs cemented the offence as a hate crime, pulsing with the intensity of faith-based hatred. Given that this case meets the parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it is being added to the hate crime database of the tracker. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incident dates based on when a crime occurred or when a victim’s ordeal began, rather than when the media reported it. In this case, the report does not provide the exact date of the original marriage or when the pressure to convert began, and only states that the marriage took place about five years ago (2021). The only specific date mentioned is 28 January 2026, when Aamir submitted an application before the Special Marriage Officer to marry another Hindu girl. Therefore, for documentation purposes, an indicative incident date of 28 January 2021 is being selected as an indicative incident date. In this case, reports stated that the Hindu woman was forced into conversion by the Muslim man and his family, but the total number of family members was not specified. Only the Muslim man and his two accomplices, named Azmat Ali alias Matali and Keshav son of Rambelas, were stated as supporting him in the entire crime. Therefore, since only three people were specifically named, the perpetrator count was selected as three. This was a conservative estimate, as the total number of perpetrators could have been higher. In this case, the perpetrator, along with the current Hindu victim, was targeting another Hindu woman for marriage. Therefore, the total victim count has been recorded as two for documentation purposes.