Hindu woman killed by Muslim partner after months of abuse; forced into prostitution

Case ID : e274ca3 | Location : East Godavari, Andhra Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Sat, 15 February, 2025

Case ID : e274ca3

East Godavari, Andhra Pradesh, India

15 February, 2025

Hindu woman killed by Muslim partner after months of abuse; forced into prostitution

Undecided cases

Hindu woman ends up dead in a consensual relationship

Case Summary

In Siddhartha Nagar, B Savaram village, Andhra Pradesh, a 22-year-old Hindu woman named Oleti Pushpa was stabbed to death by her 22-year-old Muslim live-in partner, Sheikh Shamma. According to reports, the couple had been living together for the past six months after the Hindu woman got separated from her husband. They had rented a house in the village. The Muslim accused, Shamma, was an alcoholic and addicted to ganja (drugs). He would often pick fights with her under the influence of alcohol and suspected her of having an affair with other men. He would frequently get drunk and had been forcing Pushpa to engage in prostitution. On the night of the incident, around 10 p.m., another argument broke out between the couple when the accused again pressured the victim to accompany him for sex work. When she refused, he violently attacked her with a knife, stabbing her in the leg and the left side of her chest. Her son Vinayak also tried to intervene but was unable to stop the assault. The accused then attacked Pushpa’s mother, Ganga, and her brother as they tried to intervene, leaving them seriously injured as well. Unfortunately, Pushpa succumbed to her injuries and died on the spot. As of the date of writing this report, the police have registered a case against the accused. A search operation is underway to nab him, as he remains absconding.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the Undecided database due to the lack of concrete evidence pointing to a religious motivation behind the crime. In this case, a Hindu woman was in a consensual relationship with a Muslim man, who abused her, forced her into prostitution, and eventually stabbed her to death. Although this could potentially be a crime motivated by religious profiling, as it has been observed that in many cases, Muslim perpetrators target Hindu women and girls due to inherent animosity towards Hindus. Hindu women and girls are very vulnerable to crimes like rape and sexual exploitation at the hands of Muslim men. However, it must also be acknowledged that the victim in this case was an adult, free to make her own decisions. One could argue that she could have left the relationship at the first sign of abuse. Yet such an argument ignores the ground realities. We do not know what conditions the victim was in after separating from her husband, whether she was financially or emotionally vulnerable, or facing other constraints that made it difficult to leave the abusive relationship. The accused could have very well exploited this vulnerability of the Hindu woman and targeted the woman for her religious identity. Since the accused was still absconding, we do not yet have a clear picture of what transpired between the couple. For these reasons, the case has been placed in the Undecided database. If further information emerges that indicates a religious motive behind the crime, it will be reclassified and included in the Hate Crime database. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that the report does not specify the exact date when the woman’s ordeal began, though it is stated that they had been in a relationship for the past 6 months. Thus, to document this case, we have used an indicative date—February 16, 2025—as a placeholder to represent the beginning of her suffering. While the victim was killed on July 16, 2025, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.