Busted: How Jameela Khatun Got Fake Aadhaar As Puja Sharma To Extort Money From Co-Religionists Over Forced Conversion Charges

In a case that stands to trivialise real cases of forced religious conversions and has left the authorities baffled, a Muslim woman obtained a fake government identity document in the name of a Hindu woman, entered relationships with Muslim men, accused them of forcing her to convert to their religion and tried to extort money.

At least five men, all from the woman’s religious community, helped her in this racket.

The case has come to light from Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh. The Bijnor police put out a press statement about the revelations in the case three days ago, which can be read here.

On 6 July, a woman who introduced herself as Puja Sharma, daughter of Delhi resident Raju Sharma, approached the police complaining of dowry-related harassment at the hands of her husband and his parents.

The woman told the police that her husband Mohammed Ahtesham, who she had married as per Islamic rituals a month earlier in Bijnor, abandoned her, leaving his father Fareed and his mother to harass her over dowry.

On her statement, the Bijnor police booked the three suspects under IPC sections 498A (subjecting woman to cruelty), 323 (causing hurt), 504 (insult) and 506 (criminal intimidation) along with relevant sections of The Dowry Prohibition Act.

During investigation, police discovered starling facts.

On questioning, they identified Jameela as their daughter in presence of the police.

Police eventually found other documents such as PAN and bank passbook in the name of Jameela Khatun.

Not only this, Jameela had filed a case against a man named Naushad Qureshi of forcing her to convert to Islam in January this year, police found. In her complaint, she had introduced herself as Puja Sharma, daughter of Raju Sharma, resident of Mahivar Colony in Tilak Nagar area of Delhi.

Her statement said that she had been living with Naushad for a year-and-a-half, but he raped and sexually exploited her on false assurances of marriage all along. He was forcing her to abort her child and convert to his religion. Whenever she opposed this, Naushad, along with his brother and father, would beat her up.

The case was filed at Patel Nagar police station of Dehradun district in Uttarakhand (FIR number 21 filed on 18 January, 2023).

Based on her statement, police booked Naushad, his brother Shahnawaz and their father Zahir of rape, assault and hurting religious sentiments.

See the statement below:

Bijnor Superintendent of Police Neeraj Jadaun told this correspondent that what caught his eye during preliminary investigation is that besides her latest case against Ahtesham, the woman had filed similar police cases against two other men including Naushad in adjoining Uttarakhand.

Read her statement in the FIR below:

SP Jadaun said that during questioning, Jameela revealed that before Zahir Ahmed, she had married twice — with Moidul Hassan Islam and Inam-ul-Haq respectively. She had abandoned both. She also revealed that for nikah with Ahtesham, she was renamed from Puja Sharma to Zainab Parveen.

After the facts came to light, police filed a case against Jameela and the five men of extortion and fraud on 23 July. The FIR (number 171 filed at Kotwali Dehat police station of Bijnor) was filed on the complaint of Ahtesham’s father Fareed.

Of the six, police have arrested Jameela, Zahir and Asif so far.