Hindu dalit woman and her minor daughter targeted for conversion by Muslim man posing as Hindu
Prayagraj (Allahabad), Uttar Pradesh, India 
9 July, 2025
Case Summary
In the Mauaima area of Prayagraj, a Dalit Hindu woman was deceived by a Muslim man posing as a Hindu. She and her minor daughter were threatened for religious conversion. When the victim resisted, she was physically assaulted. According to the victim, she became acquainted with a man from Kiraon village in 2021 through social media. He introduced himself as Azad Singh, a Hindu and showed her an Aadhaar card bearing the same name. As their interaction progressed, they developed a romantic relationship. Eventually, he convinced her to elope with him and married her. Around the same time, her father filed a kidnapping case against the accused. However, since both individuals were adults, no action was taken by the police, and they began living together. The victim narrated that the accused later took her to Chandigarh, where she discovered that his real name was Ejaz and that he was a Muslim. During their stay, Ejaz left for Saudi Arabia for employment, telling her that he had secured a job as a driver. While he was abroad, she returned to her parental home, where she gave birth to a daughter, who is now four years old. Around 20 days ago, Ejaz returned from Saudi Arabia. When she went to meet him, she questioned him about his religious identity. He confirmed that he was Muslim and threatened her, saying she would have to convert to Islam if she wished to continue living with him. He told her that they would only perform the nikah if she embraced Islam and instructed her to begin offering namaz daily. He forcibly renamed her Ania Bano. When she resisted, he physically assaulted her and insisted that both she and their daughter must convert to Islam. He stated clearly, “I am not a Hindu; my name is not Azad Singh but Ejaz. I used a Hindu name to marry you. I cannot be a Hindu again. You and your daughter must accept Islam and take the names I have given. If you refuse, I will kill you.” The woman shared her ordeal with her family, who took her to the local police station. Members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) also arrived at the station and demanded action against the accused. The police have since registered a case against the Muslim man and his father. The victim’s father reported that the accused deceived his daughter by concealing his true identity and is now pressuring her to change her religion, threatening to kill her if she refuses. Following the incident, Abhishek Yadav, Zila Panchayat Member and former Vice President of VHP Ganga Paar (Prayagraj), reached the police station with his supporters. They protested and demanded action against the accused.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: - Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within it, the sub-category selected is: Man pretends to be Hindu, with the tertiary category being: - Name changed. 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 sub-category relevant here is: - Forced conversion before marriage, with the tertiary categories being: - Forced to do Nikah and Forced to follow non-Hindu religious practices. 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 sub-category selected 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. The other sub-category selected is - 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. The other sub-category selected is - Torture of family to force woman to convert. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman is forced to convert her religion. Several methods are used for such forced conversion. The non-Hindu man is often documented to issue threats and even employ violence. One of the ways used by such perpetrators is threatening and/or torturing the family members of the Hindu woman to pressure her to convert. The perpetrators in such cases issue threats to harm or torture the family of the woman. In some cases, there is also violence directed towards the family to force the Hindu woman to convert. Such crimes aim to blackmail the victim into changing her religion by inducing fear of harm to her family. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The other sub-category selected is - Brainwashed and/or Groomed, with the tertiary category being - Conversion of minor. 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 hate crimes. This incident qualifies as a hate crime due to the clear presence of religiously motivated targeting, deception, and abuse. The perpetrator deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with a Hindu woman. This itself is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim's religion. By concealing his true identity, he exploited her trust, targeting her under false pretences. This indicates 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. After the man revealed his true identity as Ejaz, he insisted that the woman must convert to Islam to remain with him and formalise their relationship through a Nikah. He imposed Islamic religious practices on her, including the compulsion to perform namaz and adopt a new Muslim name, Ania Bano. These acts were not expressions of personal belief, but impositions intended to erase her Hindu identity and replace it with a religious identity she explicitly rejected. The coercive nature of this demand, combined with his earlier deception, shows that the woman was targeted because of her Hindu background. The demand that she must abandon her dharma and adopt Islam as a condition for marriage reflects a direct attack on her religious freedom as a Hindu, which qualifies this as a religiously motivated hate crime. When the woman resisted religious conversion and refused to accept the Islamic identity imposed on her, the man physically assaulted her and threatened to kill her and her daughter. These threats were tied explicitly to her refusal to give up Hinduism. In this case, violence was used as a tool to punish her for remaining Hindu and to terrorise her into religious submission. This shows clear hostility toward the Hindu identity of the victim, making it a hate crime. The accused used emotional manipulation and fear as weapons. He told the victim that she and her daughter could only live with him if they converted to Islam. He tied their safety and future to their acceptance of his faith, knowing that the victim was financially and emotionally vulnerable. This blackmail was rooted not in a general relationship conflict but in the deliberate targeting of her Hindu identity, showing that her religion was the specific reason for the coercion, qualifying it as a religiously motivated hate crime. The accused threatened to kill both the woman and her child if they did not convert. The demand that the child—a four-year-old Hindu girl—be forcibly converted was not just a religious imposition on the minor but a deliberate strategy to pressure the Hindu mother by targeting her deepest emotional and maternal vulnerabilities. By threatening harm to the child and insisting on the erasure of her Hindu identity, the perpetrator weaponised the child’s safety and religious future to force the mother into submission. This use of a minor as leverage to break the mother's resistance reflects a religiously motivated tactic of intimidation, designed specifically to violate and uproot the Hindu identity of the family. Such coercion, where a family member—especially a child—is used as a tool to enforce religious conversion, squarely qualifies as a hate crime. It is further important to note here that the victim was a minor, which means the element of consent and genuine change of conscience was missing ab initio. Minors, due to their young age and lack of maturity, are particularly vulnerable to manipulation and coercion. They may not have the ability to fully understand the implications of converting to another religion, and the Muslim perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Since this case exemplifies the use of coercion and manipulation to achieve religious conversion, it is a blatant act of religious hate, which is why it has been documented here in the hate tracker. In summary, this is not just a case of individual abuse or domestic conflict. Each action—from religious impersonation, forced rituals, renaming, and death threats to the attempted conversion of a Hindu child—was aimed at erasing Hindu identity through deceit and coercion. The victim was targeted because she was Hindu, and that makes this a clear-cut case of a religiously motivated hate crime against Hindus. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that the report does not specify the exact date when the woman’s ordeal began. But it is mentioned that the FIR was filed on 10th July 2025. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded this date as the incident date.
Victim Details
Total Victim
2
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 2
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 1
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 1
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Complaint filed
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
