Married Hindu woman deceived by Muslim man impersonating Hindu woman on social media; raped, blackmailed and financially extorted in Kanpur

Case ID : e275505 | Location : Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Thu, 18 September, 2025

Case ID : e275505

Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

18 September, 2025

Married Hindu woman deceived by Muslim man impersonating Hindu woman on social media; raped, blackmailed and financially extorted in Kanpur

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Case Summary

In Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, a Hindu woman was deceived and sexually exploited by a Muslim man named Sufian, who pretended to be a Hindu woman on social media to trap her. The victim began talking to a Hindu woman named Sonia on Instagram. Sonia later invited her to a hotel in the city. When the victim reached the location, instead of Sonia, she was met by the accused, Sufian, who introduced himself as Sonia’s brother. He offered her a cold drink laced with sedatives, after which she lost consciousness. During this time, Sufian raped her and recorded videos of the incident. After she regained consciousness, he began blackmailing her for money by threatening her with the videos. Over time, he extorted a total of 1.5 lakh rupees from her. Sufian continued to harass the victim with repeated calls, demanding more money. This raised suspicion in the victim's husband, who began to believe that she might be having an affair. Unable to disclose the truth, she endured in silence. When she refused to pay further, Sufian sent her obscene videos to her husband, triggering a fierce domestic dispute. The victim tried explaining to her husband that she had fallen into Sufian's trap, but instead of listening to her, he filed for divorce. Witnessing her family collapse, the victim finally gathered the courage to file a complaint with the police. A case was immediately registered, and the accused was arrested. Station House Officer Lalit Kumar confirmed that Sufian was a notorious criminal based in Lucknow, with at least eight prior cases already registered against him. He was known for trapping women on social media by using pictures of attractive women, creating fake identities, and then luring victims into compromising situations to blackmail them. ACP Ashutosh Singh stated that police were also investigating whether Sonia and Sufian were the same person or two different individuals.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

The primary category in this case is: Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes. The first subcategory under this is: Man pretends to be Hindu. The tertiary category under this is: 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. This case has been added to the tracker because a Hindu woman was lured into a trap by a Muslim man who pretended to be a Hindu woman on social media. The perpetrator deliberately concealed both his gender and religious identity in order to deceive, rape and financially exploit a Hindu woman. This is a clear manifestation of bias and malicious intent towards the victim’s religion. By adopting the false persona of a Hindu woman, he created a fabricated sense of trust and familiarity, targeting the victim under false pretences. This reflects a premeditated strategy to manipulate her based on her religious background. In cases like these, the tactic of assuming a false Hindu identity to manipulate and ensnare a Hindu individual is not merely an act of personal betrayal but can also be interpreted as an expression of contempt for Hinduism and its customs, exposing a deeper animosity towards Hindus and their beliefs. In addition to deception, the victim was raped, blackmailed, and financially extorted by the Muslim perpetrator to force her compliance with his demands. When sexual violence and blackmail are used in isolation, they may appear as crimes of personal exploitation. But in this case, they were combined with deliberate religious deception—the perpetrator concealed his Muslim identity and pretended to be a Hindu woman in order to ensnare a Hindu victim. That choice of deception shows that the victim was not targeted randomly but specifically because she was Hindu. In such cases, sexual violence and blackmail become tools within a larger framework of religiously motivated hostility. They are not just acts of personal domination but are directed at undermining the dignity and security of a Hindu woman as a representative of her faith community. By erasing her agency through rape and coercion, while simultaneously exploiting her trust through a fabricated Hindu identity, the crime is transformed from an individual offense into a hate crime rooted in contempt for Hinduism. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when the victim’s ordeal began. However, in this case, the report does not provide specific details regarding when the accused trapped the victim. Therefore, for documentation purposes, the date of the incident has been recorded as the date it was reported in the media, which is September 19, 2025.