Muslim youth pretends to be Hindu to lure Hindu model, visits Temple before marrying, then, along with his family forces her to convert to Islam
Punch, Jammu and Kashmir, India 
6 October, 2023
Case Summary
In Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district, a man named Shaukat Pathan of Surankot village pretended to be a Kashmiri Hindu named Sunny. He visited the holy shrine of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi in Katra with a Hindu girl who worked as a model in UP's Noida and pledged to marry her. After the two tied the knot, he disclosed his real identity and forced her to convert to Islam. She gave in to his pressure but the accused and his family continued to harass her. She was pressured to eat non-vegetarian food and to cook meat. He married his relative's daughter without divorcing her. The victim had wounds on her body and disclosed that multiple attempts were made to kill her. She accused her spouse’s brother of being a terrorist involved in the twin bombings in Jammu’s Narwal, and asserted that he was presently in Pakistan. Meanwhile, the perpetrator denied all the charges and claimed that she married him of her own free will and already knew about his religious identity. She has registered seven cases against him and his family out of which challans of six have been presented in the court. The Police's investigation is ongoing in one case.
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. What gives this case a distinct religious angle is that the Muslim perpetrator actively hid his religion and pretended to be a Hindu to ensnare the Hindu woman. He purposely visits a Hindu temple to deceive the Hindu girl into believing that he is a Hindu. Further, he harasses the Hindu victim to convert to Islam. Since the religious motive of the crime is evident from these facts, this case has been documented as a hate crime.
Victim Details
Total Victim
1
Deceased
0
Gender
- Male 0
- Female 1
- Third Gender 0
- Unknown 0
Caste
- SC/ST 0
- OBC 0
- General 0
- Unknown 1
Age Group
- Minor 0
- Adult 1
- Senior Citizen 0
- Unknown 0
Case Status
Case sub-judice
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Muslim Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
male
Sources 
