Bobbili Bhaskar shared with this correspondent a brief recording of his conversation with his girlfriend’s father last year.

The father is heard telling Bhaskar that if he undergoes circumcision, then he will accept him as his son-in-law.

Bhaskar sounds thrilled as he replies, “Ohh sachchi uncle? Allah kasam bolo uncle. Thank you uncle [Oh, really uncle? Swear in Allah’s name it’s true. Thank you uncle].”

Bhaskar, a Christian by birth, went on to obtain a religious conversion certificate from a local Muslim organisation. He then underwent the surgical procedure.

The 25-year-old is a resident of Telangana state’s Vikarabad district, which is about an hour’s car ride from Hyderabad.

The conversion certificate, dated 10 June 2019, was issued by one ‘Muslim Welfare Association Tandur’ (Tandur is an area in Vikarabad). It mentions Bhaskar’s “Islamic name” as Mohammed Abdul Hunain.

The circumcision, says Bhaskar, was carried out by a Muslim surgeon in a Vikarabad-based hospital. He says he regrets the process as it has left him in perpetual pain. And traumatised too.

He says he would have never taken the step had it not been a precondition set by his girlfriend‘s family. “It was traumatising. It still hurts,” he says.