Hindu man lured into fake marriage by Muslim woman posing as Hindu, killed for property

Case ID : ef65655 | Location : Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India | Date of Incident : Wed, 4 June, 2025

Case ID : ef65655

Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India

4 June, 2025

Hindu man lured into fake marriage by Muslim woman posing as Hindu, killed for property

Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu women

Killed by non-Hindu partner's family

Attack resulting in death

Attacked for Hindu identity

Case Summary

A Muslim woman named Sahiba Bano murdered a Hindu man named Indra Kumar Tiwari after luring him into a fabricated marriage, disguising herself as a Hindu woman. Bano, along with her husband Kaushal, orchestrated the crime after spotting Tiwari in a viral video in which he mentioned to Hindu saint Aniruddhacharya that he owned 18 bighas of land and was unmarried. This disclosure motivated Bano and her accomplice to exploit the Hindu victim through deceit and impersonation as a Hindu. The incident unfolded between Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Tiwari, aged 45, was a resident of Sohra village in Jabalpur district. Bano assumed the false identity of a Hindu woman named Khushi Tiwari and forged documents, including an Aadhaar card, to support her disguise. Kaushal posed as her brother and approached Tiwari with a marriage proposal, which Tiwari accepted after ongoing communication. The marriage was scheduled for 5th June and was to be held in Gorakhpur, as per Kaushal’s insistence. Trusting their arrangement, Tiwari purchased jewellery worth lakhs and travelled to Gorakhpur, where a fake wedding ceremony was conducted in a hotel. He later shared photographs of the event with his family, believing it to be a genuine union. However, when he asked his ‘wife’ to return with him to his village, Bano refused and proposed visiting her own village first. Within hours, Bano and Kaushal murdered Tiwari, looted his cash and jewellery, and dumped his body in a drain in the Hata area of Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh. The body was discovered later but remained unidentified until villagers, concerned by Tiwari’s silence and switched-off phone, contacted the police. Upon identification, authorities traced the culprits and arrested them. Investigators stated that Bano intended to use the staged wedding photos to claim rights to Tiwari’s land as his widow, thereby completing the fraud through religious impersonation.

Why it is Hate Crime ?

This case has been added to the tracker under multiple categories due to the various religious markers present here. The first primary category is: - Attack resulting in death. Within it, the sub-category selected is: - Attacked for Hindu identity. In several cases, Hindus are attacked merely for their Hindu identity without any perceived provocation. A classic example of this category of religiously motivated hate crime is a murder in 2016. 7 ISIS terrorists were convicted for shooting a school principal in Kanpur because they got ‘triggered’ seeing the Kalava on his wrist and tilak that he had put. In this, the Hindu victim had offered no provocation except for his Hindu religious identity. The motivation for the murder was purely religious, driven by religious supremacy. Such cases where Hindus are targeted merely for their religious identity would be documented as a hate crime. Under this category, cases where the attack led to the death of the Hindu victim/s would be documented. The second primary category is: - Men attacked for being associated with non-Hindu woman. Under this, the sub-category is: - Killed by non-Hindu partner's family. When Hindu men are in a relationship with non-Hindu women, there are cases where the man is forced/pressured to convert his religion and upon his refusal to do so, the family of the non-Hindu partner murders the victim. Such relationships may be consensual with the religious identity of the non-Hindu woman known to the victim. Somewhere along the relationship, the non-Hindu woman and her family start forcing/pressurizing the Hindu man to convert. In some of these cases, the association could be non-consensual as well or, the religious identity of the non-Muslim woman could be previously unknown to the Hindu victim. In such cases, the Hindu man is first forced/pressurized to change his religion by the non-Hindu woman’s family. The pressure could involve threats. The trigger to murdering the Hindu man in these cases is his refusal to comply and change his religion under threat and/or force. In other cases that have been documented, it is also seen that the Hindu partner is murdered by the family of the non-Hindu woman simply for his relationship with the non-Hindu woman and by virtue of him following the Hindu faith and not the religion of the non-Hindu woman. In such cases, the relationship is consensual in most cases and the religion of both partners is known to the other. Often, in such cases, there is no direct force/pressure to convert either, however, the murder is a result of the Hindu man being in a relationship with the non-Hindu partner and not following her religion/following Hinduism specifically. Such cases are driven by specific religious motivations and against the religious identity of the victim and are therefore qualified as hate crimes. The murder of Indra Kumar Tiwari by Sahiba Bano, who had concealed her identity and feigned affection under the guise of a Hindu woman named “Khushi Tiwari,” warrants categorisation under multiple headings within religiously motivated hate crime tracking. Although the outward pretext of the crime was financial, the method and context reveal unmistakable religious markers. Tiwari, a devout Hindu, was selected after he publicly identified himself through a video where he spoke to Hindu saint Aniruddhacharya about his faith, land ownership, and unmarried status. It was this explicit statement of his Hindu identity that set the chain of events in motion. As in other documented instances, such as the 2016 Kanpur case, where a Hindu principal was murdered for wearing a Kalava and Tilak, no provocation was offered beyond visible or spoken markers of Hindu practice. The selection of Tiwari as a target based on his Hindu identity, followed by his murder, meets the parameters of a hate crime. Secondly, the deception involved was not incidental but strategic: Bano intentionally adopted a Hindu identity to forge a connection with Tiwari, lure him into marriage, and ultimately kill him. The concealment of her religion was not passive. It served the purpose of bypassing the religious boundaries that otherwise might have made Tiwari hesitant or cautious. The motivations reflect not only hostility toward Tiwari’s person but also targeted animosity toward his religious identity. The crime, carried out under the pretext of matrimony, involved religious impersonation, calculated deception, and premeditated violence, all of which qualify this incident squarely as a religiously motivated hate crime. Disclaimer: It is important to clarify that the date of the incident is chosen as June 5, 2025, because it is the day when the individual was murdered. Hinduphobia Tracker records the incident based on when the victim’s ordeal began and not when it was reported.