Hindu man attempts suicide after blackmailed and assaulted by Christian wife and in-laws for religious conversion: minor children prohibited from chanting Jai Shri Ram
Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, India 
31 December, 2009
Case Summary
In Dewas, Madhya Pradesh, a Hindu man named Umakant Sharma attempted to commit suicide after being tortured and given death threats for religious conversion by his Christian wife and her family members. According to the victim, Umakant, his wife and in-laws, who are Christians, have been mentally harassing him and pressuring him to convert to Christianity for the past seven years, since the birth of their children. The couple had a love marriage in 2010 at a Hindu temple in Orchha. They had another marriage ceremony in a church in Delhi, according to Christian customs, followed by another ceremony in their native village, according to Hindu customs. After the birth of their two children, they shifted to Dewas, where the wife started pressuring the Hindu man to convert to Christianity and blackmailing him, saying that she would leave him if he did not convert. Furthermore, the accused was also given death threats by the wife, saying, "I will make your condition worse than what happened to Raja Raghuvanshi in Indore...'. He was also repeatedly denied access to his children, and during an attempt to meet them at MG Hospital, he was physically assaulted by his in-laws. Umakant had reportedly written a suicide note prior to the incident, but it went missing during the assault. He said he was not allowed to contact anyone as his mobile phone had also been taken away by his wife. Additionally, he stated that his wife was also threatening to implicate him in a false case and that his children were being denied the freedom to express their faith, including being prevented from saying 'Jai Shri Ram'. As of the date of writing this report, the police have acknowledged the incident and recorded statements, but stated that there was no angle of religious conversion. The investigation was ongoing.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: - Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women. Within it, the sub-category selected is: - Forced to convert after marriage. 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 sub-category selected here is: - Threatened to convert by family of partner. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the man faces threats to convert and change his religious identity 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 also assaults the victim to force him to convert. 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 third sub-category selected here is: - Suicide upon being forced to convert. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the Hindu man faces pressure/threats/violence to convert and change his religious identity by the non-Hindu spouse or her family or/and religious leaders. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu spouse known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu spouse starts forcing/pressurizing the Hindu man to convert. In some of these cases, unable to bear the pressure/threat/violence being mounted by the non-Hindu partner or her family to convert, the Hindu man commits suicide. In such cases, often, threats are also given to the family members of the Hindu man. Since such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim, leading to the Hindu spouse committing suicide, these cases are categorized as a hate crime. The fourth sub-category selected here is: - Blackmailed to convert. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the man is blackmailed to convert his religion. 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 woman starts blackmailing a Hindu man to convert his religion. In these cases, it is often seen that the Hindu man is blackmailed with intimate photos and/or videos, threats of harm to his 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. The fifth sub-category selected here is: - Attacked by non-Hindu partner or/and her family. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the man is forced to convert his religion and upon his refusal to do so, the partner or/and her family attacks the victim. 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. In some of these cases, the association could be non-consensual as well or, the religious identity of the non-Hindu woman could be previously unknown to the Hindu victim. In such cases, the Hindu man is first forced/pressurized to change his religion by the non-Hindu woman or her family. The force/pressure could involve threats. The trigger for directing violence against the Hindu man is in these cases his refusal to comply and change his religion under threat and/or force. In other cases that have been documented, it is also seen that the Hindu partner is assaulted by the non-Hindu woman or her family simply for his relationship with the non-Hindu woman and by virtue of him following the Hindu faith and not the religion of the non-Hindu woman. In such cases, the relationship is consensual in most cases and the religion of both partners is known to the other. Often, in such cases, there is no direct force/pressure to convert either, however, the attack is a result of the Hindu man being in a relationship with the non-Hindu partner and not following her religion/following Hinduism specifically. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The second primary category selected here is: - Predatory Proselytisation. Within it, the sub-category selected is: Proselytisation by grooming, brainwashing, manipulation or subtle indoctrination, with the tertiary category being: - Conversion of minor. Religious brainwashing essentially means the often subtle and forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up their religious beliefs to accept contrasting regimented ideas. Religious grooming or brainwashing also involves propaganda and manipulation. It involves the systematic effort, driven by religious malice and indoctrination, to persuade “non-believers’ to accept allegiance, command, or doctrine to and of a contrasting faith. Cases of such grooming or brainwashing are far more nuanced than direct threats, coercion, inducement and violence. In such cases, it is often seen that there is repeated, subtle and continual manipulation of the victim to induce disaffection towards their own faith and acceptance of the contrasting faith of the perpetrator. While subtle indoctrination is widely acknowledged as predatory, an element which is often understated in such conversions or the attempts of such conversion is the role of loyalty and trust which might develop between the perpetrator and the victim. Fiduciary relationships are often abused to affect such religious conversion. For example, an educator transmitting religious doctrine of a competing faith to a Hindu student. The Hindu student is likely to accept what the teacher is transmitting owing to existence of the fiduciary relationship. The exploitation of the fiduciary relationship to religiously indoctrinate victims would also be included in this category. Since the underlying animosity towards the victim’s faith forms the basis of predatory proselytization, such cases are considered religiously motivated hate crimes. The other sub-category relevant here 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. Such cases where Hindu victims are harassed to convert to the perpetrator’s religion are rooted in animosity towards the victim’s religious identity and are therefore documented as religiously motivated hate crimes. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu man was subjected to forced conversion by his Christian wife and her in-laws. He was tortured to the point that he attempted to take his own life. The victim was threatened, blackmailed, and physically assaulted, all as an attempt to pressure him into abandoning his faith. Initially, the wife used subtle grooming and indoctrination tactics, including conducting a second marriage in a church, which was more of a calculated step to expose him to Christian religious practices. Over time, once the couple had children and the victim was more emotionally invested, the tactics shifted from subtlety to overt coercion. The wife began to issue direct threats, threatening him that she would leave him if he did not convert. She warned him, “I will make your condition worse than what happened to Raja Raghuvanshi in Indore,” a deliberate and cruel reference to a man (Raja Raghuvanshi) who was reportedly murdered by his wife. This was not a casual remark, but a violent threat aimed at instilling fear and subjugating the victim into forced conversion. Raja Raghuvanshi was a 29-year-old businessman from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, who was reportedly murdered by his wife and her lover during his honeymoon in Meghalaya in May 2025. Married just days before to Sonam Raghuvanshi, Raja had travelled with her to Cherrapunji, where he went missing under suspicious circumstances. A few days later, his decomposed body was found near a waterfall. What seemed like an accident was actually a murder, where police uncovered that Raja's wife, in collaboration with her lover Raj Kushwaha and other accomplices, had been involved in killing Raja Raghuvanshi. The murder was premeditated and meticulously planned. Sonam used the opportunity of the honeymoon to carry out the murder and later fled to Indore. Therefore, evoking Raja Raghuvanshi's reference in this case was a veiled and violent threat to the victim to enforce religious conversion. Furthermore, the wife also denied access to the children to her husband. The children were used as tools of blackmail and manipulation to force the victim into conversion. When the victim attempted to meet them, he was beaten by his in-laws at the hospital. This assault was not just about violence; it was about delivering a message that the only path available to the victim was religious conversion, if he wanted familial peace and access to his children. The children were also denied their religious freedom, not even being allowed to say, “Jai Shri Ram”, which is a normal Hindu salutation expressing devotion and reverence to the Hindu god Lord Ram. These were calculated moves meant to systematically erase the Hindu identity of the victim and his family, piece by piece. It is also crucial to emphasise that the victims also included two minor children who were prohibited from chanting Jai Shree Ram, and thus were denied religious freedom. This means that any notion of consent or genuine change of conscience was absent from the outset. Minors, due to their age and lack of maturity, are especially vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not fully understand the implications of converting to another religion. In this case, the Christian perpetrators exploited this vulnerability of the Hindu children to further religious conversion, highlighting the religious motivation behind the crime. The perpetrators' actions go far beyond family disputes or marital discord. This was a targeted attempt to erase the religious identity of a Hindu man by leveraging fear, emotional control, and direct violence. Such actions of the victim's wife and in-laws stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to be dehumanised until they convert. Thus, the victim was subjected to exploitative means such as emotional blackmail, psychological manipulation, and violence to a point that he attempted suicide. Since such predatory actions stem from doctrinal animosity towards the Hindu faith and its adherents, this case is being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime. Notably, the police denied the conversion angle in the case. The police, in many such cases, where the motive behind the crime is obvious but not explicitly mentioned, deny that the crime committed was in any way motivated by a religious bias or say that there was ‘no communal angle’ to the crime. Several factors are generally at play here. Many a time the police downplay incidents of low-level communal crime because it is their jurisdiction that comes under question. The police also often say that there was ‘no communal angle’ to a crime when there was one because they wish to ensure that owing to the crime already committed, there is no further flare-up in the area. Likewise, the Left media and the leftist elite are also inclined to emphasise this "no communal angle" trope, especially wherever the victim of the crime is a Hindu. However, only a police statement or a media report, for instance, cannot be enough to determine whether there is a communal angle present in the crime that has been committed. In fact, to determine whether the crime is communal in nature or not, we need to give emphasis to the ground realities. For example in the case of Rinku Sharma, the Bajrang Dal activist who was mercilessly stabbed in his house in front of his family members in Delhi’s Mangolpuri area in the year 2021, the leftist media and the leftist ecosystem had tried to peddle that there was no communal angle to the crime. Even the police denied that the crime was communal in nature. However, Opindia spoke to several people who are on the ground with the family of Rinku Sharma and we were told that the communal tension in the area is palpable. The family of Rinku Sharma has said that the Muslims of the area held a grudge against Rinku ever since he celebrated the Ram Mandir verdict. Like the case of Rinku Sharma, those cases where even if the police have denied a communal angle or the leftist media have gone on an overdrive to peddle the ‘no communal angle’ trope, the ground reality, like the victim’s family or relative's testimonies, make it clear that there was an obvious religious bias that led to the crime, will be documented in this tracker. Thus, going by the same logic, since we have the victim's testimony stating that he was harassed and pressured for religious conversion, this case has been added in the tracker. Disclaimer: The victim got married in 2010, where he was pressured to marry in a church, though no exact date or month is provided. To document this case, we have used an indicative date—January 1, 2010—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of his suffering. While media coverage of the incident emerged on July 9, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.
Victim Details
Total Victim
3
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 1
- Female 0
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 2
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 3
- Unknown 0
Age Group
- Minor 2
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Christian Extremists
Perpetrators Range
Unknown
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
