Dalit Hindu boy brutally assaulted for interfaith relationship by Muslim girl’s family in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh

Case ID : e274dbf | Location : Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Tue, 15 July, 2025

Case ID : e274dbf

Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, India

15 July, 2025

Dalit Hindu boy brutally assaulted for interfaith relationship by Muslim girl’s family in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh

Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women

Attacked by non-Hindu partner or/and her family

Case Summary

In Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, a Dalit Hindu boy was brutally assaulted for having an interfaith relationship with a Muslim girl by the Muslim girl's family members. According to reports, the Dalit Hindu boy belonged to a poor family and used to work as a daily-wage labourer at a brick kiln in Uttarakhand. Sagar and his family came to their native Palda village on February 6 and started living there. During the festival of Holi, Sagar got acquainted with a Muslim girl named Sania, who belonged to an influential family. Eventually, their friendship turned into a romantic relationship, and they used to meet secretly in the village, as their relationship was not acceptable to Sania’s family. They were also planning to elope together. On July 15, 2025, Sania left home and travelled with Sagar to Una district in Himachal Pradesh. However, Sania’s family, infuriated by the interfaith relationship, started searching for the couple. They located the couple in Himachal, where the Hindu boy was badly assaulted, and both were brought back to the village. Sagar was tied to a tubewell in a jungle and brutally tortured and assaulted. Eventually, Sagar was released; however, he didn’t reach home and was missing at the time of writing this report. Sania, however, was taken home, where her uncle Matloob, cousin Sadiq, and a minor male relative strangled her to death, despite her parents' pleading with them to spare her life. The relatives killed Sania on July 23 and buried her body in the local graveyard, falsely telling villagers that she had died of tuberculosis. Meanwhile, Sagar’s family lodged a complaint with the police after Sagar went missing. The police began an investigation and found the body of the girl. Post-mortem confirmed that she was murdered. As of the date of writing this report, the police had arrested six individuals, all relatives of Sania, in connection with the crime: Matloob, Sadiq, Arman, Shan, Naseem, and Sahib, while five others, including Aarish and Sonmohammed, were absconding. Sania’s father, Walis, has also been named among the accused. Shockingly, one of the accused, Matloob, expressed no remorse and stated he regretted not killing Sagar. It was further revealed that they were planning to marry Sania elsewhere, but she refused, declaring that she would only marry Sagar. Infuriated by this, Sania's relatives strangled her to death.

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: - 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 first component which makes it worthy of being documented as a religiously motivated hate crime is that the family of the Muslim girl brutally assaulted her Hindu partner solely for being in a relationship with her. In this case, the relationship was consensual, both were adults, and both were together fully aware of each other’s religious identity. Despite this, Sagar was abducted, tied up, and subjected to brutal assault—acts clearly meant to punish and shame him for his association with a Muslim woman. In the Islamic faith, a marriage is deemed illegitimate if the non-Muslim partner does not convert to Islam. For those who practice the faith, when their daughter marries a Hindu man without the man converting to Islam, the difference in religions followed becomes the main point of disapproval for the family of the Muslim woman. Because of the ingrained element of religious supremacy in Islam, the perpetrator's family believes that such interfaith relationships diminish the family’s ‘honour’. In this case, also, the inherent animosity for the Hindu religion prompted the family of the Muslim girl to brutally assault the Dalit Hindu boy. His caste and poor socio-economic background only added to his perceived inferiority, making him an easier target, making this case worthy of being documented in the tracker. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that the report does not specify the exact date when the woman's ordeal began, but it mentions that the accused brought Sania and Sagar back to the village with them on 16th July 2025. Since this is the earliest date mentioned, we are considering this as when the victim's ordeal began and using this as the incident date. While media coverage of the incident emerged later, the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.