Minor Hindu girl befriended, sexually exploited, and blackmailed by Muslim man pretending to be Hindu

Case ID : e275411 | Location : Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 5 September, 2025

Case ID : e275411

Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand, India

5 September, 2025

Minor Hindu girl befriended, sexually exploited, and blackmailed by Muslim man pretending to be Hindu

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Brainwashed and/or groomed

Rape and sexual assault/harassment

Case Summary

In Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand, a minor Hindu girl was befriended and lured by a Muslim man who pretended to be Hindu. He sexually exploited the Hindu victim and then subjected her to blackmail. According to media reports, the Hindu victim’s mother, a resident of a village in Udham Singh Nagar, filed a complaint at the police station stating that a youth from the Muslim community had blackmailed her minor daughter by luring her and establishing sexual relations with her. The victim’s mother said that on 6th September 2025, during Ganesh Mahotsav, the Muslim accused lured away her minor daughter in a car. On discovering this, her family, supported by VHP (Vishva Hindu Parishad) workers, began searching for her. Under pressure, the Muslim accused abandoned the girl near her house and escaped. When she returned home, the minor victim revealed that the accused had approached her while going to school by introducing himself as a Hindu. Later, she discovered that he belonged to the Muslim community. Following this, on the evening of 10th September 2025, the victim’s family, along with VHP District President Tejprakash Sharma and others, met Kotwal Praveen Koshyari. Kotwal Koshyari assured the family that the case would be investigated and action would be taken against the accused.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category selected in this case is- Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. Within this, the subcategory selected 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. Another subcategory selected is- Brainwashed and/or Groomed. The tertiary category selected is- Rape and sexual assault/harassment. 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 a hate crime. This incident was a case of a hate crime against a Hindu minor girl. Since the victim is a minor, it 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 engaging in sexual activities, and the Muslim perpetrator purposely targeted and exploited this vulnerability of the victim. Since this case exemplifies the use of manipulation to sexually exploit the Hindu girl due to her religious identity, it is a blatant act of religious hate, making it a religiously motivated crime. The Muslim perpetrator deliberately befriended the Hindu girl by pretending to be Hindu and concealing his real Muslim identity in order to deceive her. This was not a casual or personal betrayal but a calculated act rooted in religious bias. The accused knew that as a Hindu, the girl would not have entered into any association with him had she known his true identity. By manipulating her through deception and presenting himself as Hindu, he specifically targeted her because of her faith. This makes the act a religiously motivated offence. Following this deception, the Hindu girl was subjected to sexual exploitation at the hands of the Muslim perpetrator. Sexual exploitation in this context was not a random assault but a targeted attack against a Hindu girl due to her religious identity. The act of sexual exploitation of the victim here must be understood as a method of domination, humiliation, and coercion directed at her because she was Hindu. This transforms the crime from a private offence into one motivated by religious hostility. The Muslim accused also blackmailed the girl after exploiting her. Blackmail was used to silence her and to maintain control, forcing her continued submission to the sexual exploitation. This further highlights the religious motivation behind the crime, since it was designed not only to abuse her but to completely break her will and eliminate her ability to resist the forced relationship. In summary, the combination of religious deception, sexual violence, coercion, and exploitation of a minor Hindu girl makes the incident a clear case of a hate crime. Therefore, this case is being added to the hate crime database in the Hinduphobia Tracker. Disclaimer: The exact date when the victim was first lured by the Muslim perpetrator has not been specified in the media report. However, the report does state that the victim was lured away on 6th September 2025. This was the date when she was taken away in a car and subjected to sexual exploitation. Therefore, 6th September 2025 is being used as the indicative date of the incident. The Hinduphobia Tracker records the date of an incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began, rather than when it was later reported by the media.