Yesterday, at Jamia Nagar Police Station in Delhi, a First Information Report was filed against six members of a family for kidnapping a woman, keeping her in confinement, raping her, criminally intimidating her and acting in a combined conspiracy.
Her statement recorded in the FIR says the woman was also forcibly converted from Hinduism to Islam, forced to wear a burqa and eat meat, forced to do namaz, and eventually forced into prostitution.
The key accused, Mohammed Fahim alias Fahim Langda, who trapped her through Instagram by posing as a man named Sahil, is a notorious illegal arms trader from Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut (about 50 kilometres from New Delhi) who is currently lodged in jail.
As per the statement in the FIR, Fahim used to call clients home to sell illegal weapons. His clients included Asif Fauji. The woman, now 23, has stated that Fahim used those weapons to constantly threaten her.
The FIR was filed after the woman was recently threatened by Fahim over a phone call made from a jail in Meerut. She then approached a lawyer who connected her to social service organisations in Delhi – Save India Foundation and Sewa Nyaya Utthan Foundation.
The two organisations are now jointly supporting the woman, who is from the scheduled Valmiki jaati, in her pursuit of justice and rehabilitation.
Swati Goel Sharma, founder of Sewa Nyaya Utthan Foundation, spoke to the victim and counselled her through her trauma.
Below is her story as narrated to Swati
Megha, name changed, was approached by a man named Sahil on Instagram in 2021. He told her that he was disabled in one leg and therefore found it difficult to make friends, and that he would not judge her if she too felt that way. On Instagram, he had posted pictures of himself wearing rudraksh mala and kalawa.
Through such emotional talk, he convinced Megha to begin a friendship with him. They started chatting, but they did not meet for almost a year.
In March 2022, Megha travelled from Faridabad to Batla House in Okhla, Delhi, to meet him.
She says that when she entered the house where he had called her, she found several men there, not just Sahil. Sahil began touching her inappropriately and called a man to bring juice. After drinking it, she felt dizzy. She says that Sahil and several other men then raped her.
When she returned home, feeling violated but scared of telling her parents, Sahil began blackmailing her to continue the relationship. She says his attitude changed after that. He started showering her with attention and gifts, while also subtly warning her that he still had their pictures and videos.
She fell into his trap.
In May 2022, he called her again to Batla House. A man from Sahil’s group took them to Anand Vihar bus terminal, from where he put them on a bus to Meerut.
Megha says that when she reached his house in Sathla village, Meerut, she was stunned to discover that it was a Muslim household. Sahil was actually Mohammed Fahim. His parents were Khurshid and Tasleem. His sister was Iqra, and his brothers were Zaid and Azeem.
After settling down a little, she was served dal and roti. Megha says she again felt dizzy after eating it. She recalls Khurshid having sex with her. When she woke up the next morning and asked where Fahim was, Tasleem said he had gone to Saharanpur for work.
While Fahim was away, the entire family threatened her that if she tried to leave the house, she would be killed. She learnt that the entire family was involved in the sale of illegal weapons.
On 27 May 2022, after Fahim returned, he took her to a madrassa in Agwanpur village, run by his maternal uncle Hafiz Manzoor. He told her that she would be converted to Islam.
When she refused, Manzoor violently pulled her hair and beat her.
He told her that it was a blessing for a kaafir like her to get the opportunity to convert to Islam and escape “dojakh ki aag”, and that she should not resist even a little.
She was made to recite the kalma and told that she had been renamed Aisha. She said it was a complicated name and she would not even be able to pronounce it. Manzoor slapped her and said it was the name of one of the wives of their Prophet, and that having that name was a blessing.
From then on, Megha was forced to wear a burqa at home and do namaz. If she refused, the women of the house beat her. Fahim would force sexual relations with her every day.
In July 2022, she became pregnant. She did not want to have the child because she had realised that she was in an abusive relationship and trapped.
Fahim beat her. He told her that children must never be aborted because they are Allah’s gift to Muslims. He told her that the only thing women could give to Islam was children, in exchange for all the food they were served and all the clothes they were gifted. Even if a woman was asked to give birth every year, he said, she must never resist.
They visited a local doctor, who advised that she be treated well for the first three months. Megha says those were the best months of her traumatic time with Fahim because he did not force her to have sex. However, she says he had relations with his mami during this time.
After three months, she was again forced to have sex daily. If she resisted, she was punished by being denied food the next day. Once, when she was resisting, he tried to push her out of his room without clothes.
Fahim also took her to his cousin Firoz, who was sarpanch. Firoz gave him a letter on his letterhead and told Fahim to go to an Aadhaar centre, saying his work would be done. At the centre, Megha’s Aadhaar card was issued in the name of Aisha, with her father’s name replaced by Fahim’s name as husband.
Megha says she was routinely demeaned in the family after this. If she asked for new undergarments, she would be given Iqra’s used ones to wear. Fahim would bring meat with blood in it and force her to wash and cook it. Once, he bashed her against a wall.
After she delivered her daughter, Azeem held the baby by her feet and threatened to throw her off the roof. Megha panicked and asked him what he wanted in order to spare the child. Azeem said she must have sex with him because his wife was away.
After this incident, Megha drank pesticide kept in the house to end her life. She did not die, but began vomiting. The family took her to a hakim, and she recovered.
From then on, Megha says, the family started using her as a prostitute. Illegal arms buyers who came to the house would be sent into Megha’s room for sex.
When she began resisting, a Maulvi named Nafees was called. He pressed her breasts in the name of diagnosing her problem and then gave her a taweez to wear. He also gave her a drink mixed with sugar and his spit, saying she was acting unreasonably because of evil spirits and would be cured.
Nafees said that all the men being sent to her room were his clients, and that Tasleem charged money from all those men, so she should not resist.
Megha says Tasleem would often say that her brother Manzoor had told her that getting a Hindu woman to convert to Islam gives Muslims a seat in Jannat, and therefore every Muslim man must do it.
Megha recalls that Fahim told her several times that his mama Manzoor had told him that since he could not go outside India for Haj because of his criminal record, he must get a Hindu woman converted through a love trap.
He told her that he had trapped her through Instagram under this motivation, and that he was trying to trap several women at the same time.
Since Fahim was an illegal arms supplier and police would routinely come to his house, he shifted from Meerut to Delhi’s Batla House area in November 2024.
On 10 January 2025, the Mehrauli Special Staff of Delhi Police came and arrested Fahim. Although he was released in 15 days, he was again arrested by Gurugram Police for a separate crime. This time, the police seized his mobile phone as well.
This came as a major relief to Megha. She packed her bags, left the house, and went straight to her parents.
Since then, she has been staying there. She says Fahim has been calling her from jail every now and then, threatening that he will get her back once he is released.
The most recent of these threat calls was made on 12 May, she says.
What Next
As stated above, Megha approached a lawyer, who connected her to Save India Foundation and Sewa Nyaya Utthan Foundation.
After being assured of support, Megha agreed to get an FIR filed.
The FIR was registered at Jamia Nagar Police Station on 14 May, after a team from these organisations stayed with her for nine hours straight.
Swati Goel Sharma, who accompanied the girl at the police station throughout, said police were reluctant to add statements related to forced conversion saying Delhi does not have an anti-forced conversion law.
Eventually, however, the FIR does include some of those statements. Six accused named in the FIR – Fahim, Khurshid, Zaid, Azeem, Taslim and Nafis – have been booked under 366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing a woman to compel her marriage, illicit intercourse, or forced sexual exploitation), 376 (rape), 506 (criminal intimidation), 342 (wrongful confinement), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and BNS Section 351 (criminal intimidation under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita).
On 15 May, the woman recorded her statement before a magistrate.
Megha is now in safe custody.
The legal fight has begun.
