Hindu girl lured, converted and forced into Nikah by Muslim man posing as Hindu

Case ID : e274e9a | Location : Jhanjharpur, Bihar, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 24 April, 2025

Case ID : e274e9a

Jhanjharpur, Bihar, India

24 April, 2025

Hindu girl lured, converted and forced into Nikah by Muslim man posing as Hindu

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Forced conversion before marriage

Forced to follow non-Hindu religious practices

Forced to do Nikah

Case Summary

An 18-year-old Hindu girl from Umaria district, Madhya Pradesh, was lured, converted, and forced to recite the Kalma and undergo Nikah by a Muslim man named Salman, who posed as a Hindu. The two first connected through the online game PUBG, where the accused, a resident of Jhanjharpur in Bihar, misrepresented his religious identity to gain the girl's trust. Using this false persona, he developed a romantic relationship with her. On April 25, the girl went missing from her home, prompting her father to file a kidnapping complaint. Acting swiftly, the police traced her location to Bihar and conducted a raid in Jhanjharpur on June 1. During the operation, Salman and his father, Sultan, fled the scene, but the girl was rescued with the assistance of local police. The girl later revealed that she was forcibly converted to Islam, made to recite the Kalma, and coerced into Nikah during the eighteen days of captivity. As of the date of this report, the accused remain absconding, and police efforts to apprehend them are ongoing.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the hate tracker under the prime category - 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 category being - Forced to follow non-Hindu religious practices and 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 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu girl became a target of online grooming by a Muslim man who converted her to Islam, while pretending to be Hindu. The perpetrator deliberately concealed his religious identity to initiate and sustain a relationship with the Hindu girl. Trying to have a relationship with the girl while pretending to be Hindu underscores the malicious intent of the accused. This deception 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. Additionally, the accused also forcibly converted the Hindu girl to Islam, coerced her into Nikah, and made her recite the Kalma. This highlights that the accused had a deep level of animosity and disdain for the victim's Hindu faith. This level of animosity stems from Islamic theology, which commands all Muslims to overtly or covertly convert non-Muslims to Islam, in this case, Hindus. This results in instances where Hindus are deceived, manipulated, coerced, and forced to adopt Islam. This instance glaringly showcases that the accused religiously profiled the victim, lured her away, and then forced her to recite the Kalma. This shows that the perpetrator wanted to strip her of her original faith; all this is rooted in hatred for Hinduism and Hindus. This highlights a pattern of coercion, manipulation, and exploitation, all centred around forcing the Hindu victim to change her religious beliefs. Such actions are designed to intimidate, control, and harm Hindu victims because of their religious background. Such actions stem from inherent hostility towards the victim's professed faith since Abrahamic faiths believe that any non-adherent to the faith is subject to being dehumanised till they convert. 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. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that media reports do not specify the exact date when the victim's ordeal began. But it mentions that the victim went missing on April 25, 2025. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we have recorded the date of the incident based on when she went missing, since the Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, not when it was reported.