Hindu woman raped and pressured for conversion by Muslim man posing as Hindu in Indore; accused previously exploited multiple Hindu women
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India 
27 October, 2025
Case Summary
In Indore, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship, was raped under the pretext of marriage and was then pressured for religious conversion by a Muslim man named Farhan Sheikh alias Irfan Qazi. He had posed as a Hindu man named Mohit Yadav to trap the Hindu woman into a relationship and then further exploit her. The victim stated that she was subjected to relentless coercion and blackmail for religious conversion. Reports also revealed that the accused in the past had similarly targeted several Hindu women and had sexually exploited them. According to media reports, the accused is the son of Shafuddin Sheikh, a resident of Budhania. Farhan's father is a Bharatiya Janata Party sarpanch and Minority Front official in Budhania, Hatod area, while Farhan himself ran a cafe. The victim stated that she first met the accused on 28 October 2025 at 'The Coffee Concept' cafe in Apollo Heights. The accused befriended her, introducing himself as Mohit Yadav, and gradually began to interact with her. After some time, they exchanged mobile numbers, and a series of meetings began during which he lured her into a relationship. The victim stated that one day, the accused invited her to his flat in Geeta Nagar on the pretext of meeting him. He told her that his parents had gone to the market and no one was home. During this time, the accused, promising to marry her, had sexual relations with her. Following this, he began forcibly sexually exploiting her multiple times under the same marriage pretext. While doing this, he secretly recorded her obscene photos and videos. The victim discovered the accused’s true identity when he began coercing her to convert to Islam. When she resisted, he threatened her, threatening to release her nude videos on social media if she refused. The woman stated that this fear led to her continued exploitation. Distressed by all this, the victim, along with Vishwa Hindu Parishad officials Santosh and Sagar, reached the Police Commissioner's office and complained about the entire incident. Police Commissioner Santosh Singh took the matter seriously and immediately directed the women's police station to take action. Following this, the women's police station registered a First Information Report against the accused, Farhan Sheikh alias Irfan Qazi, under sections of rape and pressure to convert. According to the police, the victim's statement was recorded in court on 10 March 2026 under Section 164, after which further legal action was taken. Reports also stated that the Muslim accused trapped several young women in his cafe. Police suspected that he befriended women through social media and the cafe, lured them into a love affair, and later exploited them. Investigating officers believed that examining the accused's mobile phone could reveal many more shocking revelations. It was also stated that the accused's name had been involved in controversy before. In November 2024, Hindu Jagran Manch activists caught him in an objectionable position with a 24-year-old Hindu woman from Rewa in Arihant Nagar, Gandhi Nagar area, near Gommatgiri. At that time, it was stated that he was sexually abusing the woman. The organisation's activists beat the accused on the spot and took him to the Gandhi Nagar police station. However, the woman refused to file any complaint at that time, leading the police to resolve the matter by taking only preventive action against the accused. Sources also stated that when activists apprehended the accused, a search of his mobile phone revealed numerous incriminating photos and videos of several Hindu women. Some of these videos showed the accused engaging in obscene acts with the young woman, while other young men were also seen in other clips. The accused was stated to be a practitioner of some witchcraft and supposed black magic rituals. Local Hindu organisations said that if strict action had been taken against the accused at that time, he might not have targeted another young woman again. Women's police station in-charge Shraddha Yadav said that the police were investigating the entire matter. The accused was being searched for. He would be arrested soon.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case was added to the tracker under the primary category: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory selected was: Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary categories were: Name Changed, 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. The other subcategory selected was: Brainwashed and/or Groomed. The tertiary category selected was: 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 subcategory selected was: Forced conversion before marriage. 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 subcategory selected was: 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. The other subcategory selected was: 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 is a clear instance of a religiously motivated hate crime, as a Hindu woman was lured into a relationship and sexually exploited by a Muslim man posing as a Hindu. The accused also pressured the victim to convert to Islam and subjected her to blackmail and threats upon refusal. Altogether, this made it a clear case of a hate crime. Firstly, the perpetrator'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 identity, the Muslim man manipulated the Hindu woman's trust and targeted her under false pretences, indicating a premeditated effort to exploit the woman based on her religious background. Additionally, the false promise of marriage legitimised the relationship in the eyes of the woman. This constituted a direct violation of her right to informed consent regarding whom she chose to engage with, 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 was 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 a 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, sexual exploitation, blackmail or conversion in mind. Such targeted victimisation based on religion not only demonstrated a fundamental disregard for Hinduism but also exposed a deeper animosity toward Hindus and their beliefs. Secondly, under the false pretence of a Hindu identity, the Muslim accused manipulated the Hindu woman and sexually exploited her multiple times under the pretext of marriage. This sexual violence was not merely for his gratification but a deliberate act to target and violate a Hindu woman due to her religious identity. The repeated rapes served to humiliate her for her faith and assert dominance over her as a Hindu, reflecting his deep-seated religious animosity. The accused also secretly recorded obscene photos and videos of the victim during these assaults, which he later weaponised for blackmail to coerce her conversion to Islam. Altogether, this pattern of religiously motivated sexual violence and extortion showcased profound hatred towards the victim and her Hindu identity. Thirdly, the Muslim man coerced her to convert to Islam by threatening to release her nude videos and photos on social media if she refused, while continuing to exploit her sexually. This pressure for religious conversion was the culmination of his initial deception and repeated rapes, revealing that his actions formed a deliberate sequence aimed at erasing her Hindu identity through blackmail and forced marriage. By weaponising the evidence of his crimes to demand she abandon her faith, Farhan Sheikh demonstrated profound religious hostility towards Hinduism, violating her right to religious freedom and marking this as a textbook religiously motivated hate crime with conversion as its core intent. Furthermore, the blackmail and threats employed by Farhan served as a ruthless tool to shatter the victim's spirit and coerce her into religious conversion. After secretly recording her nude photos and videos during repeated sexual exploitations, he weaponised this material by threatening to publicly release it on social media if she refused to abandon her Hindu faith and convert to Islam. This calculated psychological torment not only prolonged her exploitation but systematically eroded her resistance, autonomy, and religious identity, trapping her in a cycle of fear and submission. Such manipulative tactics using evidence of rape as leverage to enforce conversion exemplify a religiously motivated hate crime, as they target the victim's faith directly, aiming to forcibly strip her of her Hindu beliefs through intimidation and dehumanisation rather than mere personal gain. This was not the first instance of such predatory behaviour by Farhan Sheikh alias Irfan Qazi, as he had previously targeted and sexually exploited a 24-year-old Hindu woman from Rewa in November 2024 near Gommatgiri in Indore's Arihant Nagar, Gandhi Nagar area, where Hindu Jagran Manch activists caught him in an objectionable position abusing her and beat him before handing him over to the police. At that time, a search of his seized mobile phone uncovered numerous obscene photos and videos of multiple Hindu women, some depicting him engaging in explicit acts with the Rewa victim, while other young men appeared in additional clips, revealing a pattern of systematically collecting compromising material from Hindu women specifically. This repeated targeting of Hindu women for sexual exploitation, documentation, and potential coercion demonstrates that his actions were not impulsive or isolated but a deliberate, sustained campaign rooted in deep-seated religious animosity towards Hindu women due to their faith. Overall, since this case met several parameters of a religiously motivated hate crime, it was added to the hate crime database of the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: In this Indore case, reports confirm multiple Hindu victims were targeted. For the Rewa victim, it remains unclear whether she faced forced sexual exploitation alongside other Hindu women whose photos were found on the perpetrator's phone; the exact number is unspecified. Only the current Indore victim is explicitly identified. Therefore, Hinduphobia Tracker records a victim count of one. This is a conservative estimate recorded only for documentation purposes.
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 
