Hindu girl coerced into conversion and nikah by man posing as Hindu in Rae Bareli

Case ID : e274e14 | Location : Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Mon, 21 April, 2025

Case ID : e274e14

Raebareli, Uttar Pradesh, India

21 April, 2025

Hindu girl coerced into conversion and nikah by man posing as Hindu in Rae Bareli

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to do Nikah

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Blackmailed to convert

Predatory Proselytisation

Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement

Case Summary

A Hindu woman was deceived, sexually exploited, and repeatedly coerced into religious conversion by a Muslim man named Mohammad Zubair in Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh. The woman, aged 21 and a resident of the Gadganj area, encountered Zubair while visiting a local tomb where he worked as an occultist. During these visits, Zubair deliberately concealed his Muslim identity and posed as a Hindu to gain her trust. Under this false identity, Zubair initiated physical contact with the woman and exploited her trust to sexually violate her. He secretly filmed obscene videos during the encounters and later used those recordings as instruments of blackmail. He repeatedly threatened to release the material if she refused to comply with his demands. When the woman eventually discovered Zubair’s true religious identity, she objected and lodged a complaint with the Gadganj police. On 22 April 2025, a formal case was registered under provisions concerning sexual abuse and religious deception. Zubair was arrested and remanded to judicial custody. Following his release from prison, Zubair resumed contact through intermediaries, demanding that the woman convert to Islam and agree to marry him. He promised her a sum of Rs 10 lakh as an inducement for conversion and marriage. He also issued threats against her life and property if she refused to comply. On July 28, 2025, the woman submitted a written statement to Superintendent of Police Dr Yashvir Singh, detailing the continued harassment. The letter she received from Zubair, in which he explicitly urged her to change her religion and marry him, was handed over to the police. She also stated that her family, under pressure, had stopped sheltering her. SP Dr Singh directed Circle Officer Arun Kumar Nohwar to investigate the matter. Nohwar confirmed that the earlier case had been registered and stated that if the renewed complaints were corroborated, decisive legal action would be taken.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category in this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The subcategory under this is: Man pretends to be Hindu. 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 selected is - Forced conversion before marriage, and within it, the tertiary category selected is - Forced to do Nikah. 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 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 pressurising 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. Another subcategory under this 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. Another subcategory under this 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 second primary category under this is: Predatory Proselytisation. The subcategory under this is: Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc, to induce the victim into changing his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, forms of which are often penalised by law. Such cases, therefore, are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. In this case, Mohammad Zubair, a Muslim man, deliberately concealed his religious identity and falsely presented himself as a Hindu in order to initiate a relationship with the victim. 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. The concealment was not incidental or passive; it was a calculated deception deployed to breach the religious boundaries of the Hindu woman and to gain physical and emotional access to her. Once intimacy was established, he violated her sexually and filmed explicit videos, which he later used as tools for coercion. This deception, coupled with subsequent blackmail, indicates that the relationship was never based on mutual consent, but rather on a sustained effort to target and subjugate the victim based on her religious identity. The Muslim perpetrator not only deceived her by hiding his true religious identity but later coerced her to abandon her Hindu faith and convert to Islam as a precondition for marriage. His repeated demands for religious conversion, threats, and inducements (including money) were all aimed at erasing her Hindu identity. Such targeted coercion to forsake one’s religion amounts to religious persecution and reflects hostility toward the Hindu faith, thereby constituting a hate crime against Hindus. After being released from jail, Zubair resumed his coercive efforts by sending messages through intermediaries demanding that the woman convert to Islam and marry him. Upon her refusal, he threatened her with harm to her life and property. Such threats were issued with the singular objective of enforcing religious conversion, which fulfils the requirement of religious motivation in the classification of hate crimes. Zubair exploited the obscene videos he had recorded earlier to threaten the woman and manipulate her into submission. This specific method of coercion, intimate blackmail tied to the demand for religious conversion, makes the hate motivation even more evident. The use of sexual exploitation to pressure a Hindu woman to convert to Islam establishes that her religious identity was not incidental but central to the exploitation. Blackmail targeting religious conversion is a direct and explicit attack on the religious freedom and dignity of the individual. Finally, the case falls under the second primary category, “Predatory proselytisation,” with a direct correspondence to the subcategory “Conversion/attempts to convert by inducement.” Zubair offered the woman a sum of Rs 10 lakh in exchange for changing her religion and agreeing to marry him. This inducement, offered after the failure of threats and blackmail, illustrates a pattern of systematic proselytisation through coercive and manipulative means. The victim’s economic and social vulnerability, especially after being disowned by her family, is precisely the kind of condition that predatory conversion tactics exploit. The monetary offer cannot be interpreted as a benign proposal; it is part of a larger strategy to detach the woman from her Hindu identity by using financial leverage. Thus, the incident in Rae Bareli embodies all the fundamental indicators of a hate crime: religious deception, sexual exploitation, threats upon refusal to convert, blackmail rooted in religious coercion, and inducement through financial reward. The crime targeted the woman precisely because she was Hindu, with every action from deception to inducement designed to dismantle her religious identity. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that none of the media sources covering this case have specified the exact date when the victim's ordeal began. The earliest date mentioned is April 22, 2025, when she filed a complaint against the perpetrator. Since Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began and not when it was reported, we have considered the date of the incident as April 22, 2025, though the media reported the incident on July 28, 2025.