Muslim man from Lucknow marries Hindu girl in temple, exploits her for 9 years, then leaves her for her Hindu identity

Case ID : ea7ab36 | Location : Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Fri, 6 October, 2023

Case ID : ea7ab36

Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

6 October, 2023

Muslim man from Lucknow marries Hindu girl in temple, exploits her for 9 years, then leaves her for her Hindu identity

Crimes against women in relationships and other sexual crimes

Leaves Hindu partner upon refusal to convert

Man pretends to be Hindu

Marries as per Hindu rituals

Case Summary

In Lucknow Uttar Pradesh, Mohammad Shahid befriended a Hindu girl. He took her to a temple and put vermilion (sindoor) on the girl's forehead. He established sexual relations with her in a hotel. He continued physically and sexually exploiting the girl for 9 years. When the victim's family started looking for a boy for her marriage, she asked Shahid to take her to his house. After avoiding the subject for some time, Shahid asked her to marry someone else and left the girl for her Hindu identity. When the victim tried to convince Shahid, he threatened to kill her mother and brother. Based on the complaint of the victim, a case was registered and the accused is being searched.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

In this case, there are two components which prove that the Muslim perpetrator committed the offence coupled with a religious bias. The first sub-category used for this case is 'Man pretends to be Hindu'. Though in this case, there is no specific element of the Muslin accused hiding his identity, but, since he took the victim to a temple, a place of her religious belief, to marry her makes it evident that he only did so to gain her trust so that he could physically exploit her. 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 second sub-category in this instance is 'Muslim man leaves Hindu partner upon refusal to convert. While it is not explicitly mentioned that the Muslim perpetrator wanted the Hindu girl to convert to Islam since he left her specifically for her Hindu identity, it is safe to assume that the religious identity of the victim was a barrier to the relationship and knowing so fully well, he continued sexually exploiting the woman. Further, it is also safe to assume that had the woman converted to Islam, the perpetrator would not have abandoned her. When Hindu women are in a relationship with non-Hindu men, there are cases where the woman faces pressure/threats/violence to convert and change her religious identity by the non-Hindu man. However, when the Hindu woman refuses to convert, the non-Hindu man ends the relationship or divorces the woman, as the case might be. 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 pressuring the Hindu woman to change her religious identity and upon her refusal, ends the relationship. Cases where the Hindu woman converts to Islam and does not file a complaint about the force, or threat after she refuses to convert to Islam, are not considered a part of the hate tracker. Thus, this case has been published here because it satisfies two particular requirements of religiously motivated hate crimes against Hindu women: a Muslim man pretends to be Hindu by marrying the Hindu victim in a temple and leaves the Hindu victim when she refuses to convert.