Muslim man poses as Hindu, rapes a woman, converts her religion, attempts to push her into prostitution

Case ID : ea7aaee | Location : Sitarganj, Uttarakhand, India | Date of Incident : Sun, 9 July, 2023

Case ID : ea7aaee

Sitarganj, Uttarakhand, India

9 July, 2023

Muslim man poses as Hindu, rapes a woman, converts her religion, attempts to push her into prostitution

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Assault or threat upon refusal to convert

Man pretends to be Hindu

Name Changed

Forced conversion before marriage

Case Summary

In the Sitarganj city of Uttarakhand, a victim Hindu woman, who is a divorcee, met a man hailing from Bansheda, Pilibhit region. The man introduced himself as a Hindu and established a friendship with her. Later he trapped her in a relationship and took Rs 1 lakh from her. The woman was promised marriage by the accused as he established sexual relations with her. However, the woman later came to know that the man was a Muslim. The accused then forced her to convert her religion to Islam and tried to push her into prostitution. He threatened both her and her mother with death. The victim woman filed a complaint against the accused at the Sitarganj police station.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

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. In this case, a non-Hindu man concealed his religious identity and pretended to be a Hindu to lure a Hindu woman. Since the religious motive of the crime is evident from the fact that the man pretended to be a Hindu to trap a Hindu woman, this case has been documented as a hate crime.