Hindu woman attempts suicide after being decieved by Muslim man posing as Hindu
New Delhi, Delhi, India 
1 July, 2025
Case Summary
In Vasant Kunj, Delhi, a 19-year-old Hindu woman was lured into a relationship, sexually exploited under the pretext of marriage, and blackmailed with her obscene photographs and voice recordings by a Muslim man named Mohammad Rehan, who posed as a Hindu to trap her. The accused wore a Kalawa (a sacred Hindu thread) to convince the victim of his Hindu identity. The woman was ultimately driven to suicide after the accused refused to marry her. According to media reports, the accused worked as a loader at the airport. He targeted the victim, who lived in his neighbourhood. He gained her trust and sexually exploited her for several years by promising to marry her. During this time, she became pregnant twice, and he deceitfully arranged for her to have abortions. The accused also secretly took obscene photographs of the victim and recorded a few inappropriate voice recordings. When the woman pressed him to marry her, he flatly refused, and she subsequently discovered his true identity. Distraught by this deceit, the young woman consumed acid in an attempt to end her life. She was then rushed to the Safdarjung Hospital for treatment. The victim’s mother lodged a complaint at the Vasant Kunj police station, stating that the accused befriended her daughter by concealing his religion and also wore a Kalawa to reinforce the deception. He raped her repeatedly under the guise of marriage, took objectionable photographs, and threatened to make them public. The complainant also provided the victim’s phone to the police, which contained voice recordings of the perpetrator. The mother further stated that the accused had previously targeted only Hindu girls and had been in relationships with several Hindu women in the past. Following this, the authorities filed a case against Rehan under multiple sections of the BNS and then arrested him.
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. Within this, the subcategory selected is- Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary category selected is- Wears symbols of Hinduism. 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. Within this, the tertiary category selected is- 'Rape and sexual assault/ harassment' and 'Pattern of targeting Hindu women'. 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. In this case, a Hindu woman was deceived, sexually exploited under the pretext of marriage, and blackmailed by a Muslim man posing as a Hindu. This is a clear example of a hate crime targeting a Hindu woman based on her religious identity. This incident goes beyond individual criminality and enters the realm of hate crime due to the calculated use of religious deception, targeted exploitation, and subsequent blackmailing, all of which specifically preyed upon the victim’s faith and community background. The religious motive behind the crime is clear from the Muslim perpetrator’s deliberate concealment of his Muslim identity in order to deceive the Hindu victim. He further reinforced this deception by wearing a Kalawa, a sacred thread traditionally worn by Hindus. This act itself demonstrates clear bias and malicious intent towards the victim’s religion. By hiding his own religious identity, the Muslim perpetrator exploited the victim's trust and targeted her under false pretences, indicating a premeditated intent to manipulate her based on her religious identity. In such instances, the tactic of adopting a false Hindu identity to manipulate and ensnare a Hindu individual is not only an act of personal betrayal but an expression of disdain or disregard for Hinduism and its customs. This reflects a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs, which is why this case has been included here. In this case, the victim was so traumatised by the sexual exploitation, blackmail, religious betrayal, and broken promise of marriage that she attempted to take her own life by drinking acid. This tragic outcome highlights the severity and intensity of the exploitation she endured at the hands of the Muslim perpetrator, further underlining the seriousness of this religiously motivated crime. Another important point to highlight is that the victim’s mother stated the accused had a history of targeting only Hindu girls. This reveals a disturbing pattern in which Muslim perpetrators deliberately conceal their identity to gain the trust of Hindu women. The repeated focus on Hindu women as targets suggests a deeper ideological contempt for Hinduism, wherein targeting women based on their faith and subjugating them is viewed as a symbolic act of dominance. This behaviour points to a mindset that sees Hindu identity not as something to be respected, but as something to be manipulated, broken, or converted, revealing a clear religious animosity and a hostile agenda aimed at destabilising Hindu social and cultural continuity. Such actions are driven by deep-seated hostility towards the Hindu community and reflect a broader issue of religiously motivated crimes. As this crime was driven by religious animosity towards the victim because of her faith, and ultimately led to her attempted suicide, this case is being added to the hate crime database. Disclaimer: The victim's mother's testimony revealed that many Hindu girls were targeted by the accused. However, since she filed a complaint explicitly accusing the perpetrator of targeting her 19-year-old daughter, we have conservatively recorded the victim count as 1 in the database for accuracy and consistency.
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
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
One Person
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
