New Delhi: The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad (UP ATS) has arrested two men for allegedly running a racket involved in converting deaf students and other poor people to Islam in UP with funding from Pakistan’s ISI, reports news agency PTI. The arrests were made after an FIR was registered in the case at Lucknow’s ATS police station. Additional Director General of Police (ADGP – Law and Order) Prashant Kumar identified the arrested accused as Mufti Qazi Jahangir Alam Qasmi and Mohammad Umar Gautam, both residents of Jamia Nagar in New Delhi.
Gautam lived in Batla House of Jamia Nagar, the infamous site of September 2008 encounter between the Special Cell of Delhi police and Indian Mujahideen operatives, in which Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma was gunned down by terrorists, two of whom were shot dead and two arrested, while two other had escaped. Kumar said Gautam, who is himself a convert to Islam from Hinduism, boasted to the police of having converted at least 1,000 people to Islam, luring them with marriage, money and jobs. “I converted at least 1,000 non-Muslims to Islam, marrying them all to Muslims,” Kumar quoted Gautam as boasting.
UP ATS arrested two persons for their involvement in religious conversion on pretext of money, job & marriage of people from weaker economic sections & students. Probe revealed accused were funded by some international organisations including ISI: Prashant Kumar, ADG Law & Order pic.twitter.com/pLhzMTEkK8
— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) June 21, 2021
The outfit that they ran is named Islamic Dawah Center, having access of funds from Pakistan’s ISI and other foreign agencies, said Kumar. The ADGP said the ATS had been working on the case on the intelligence that some people were getting funds from ISI and other foreign agencies for converting poor people to Islam and spreading communal enmity in the society.
The ATS probe has resulted in the duo’s arrest, said Kumar, adding they have been booked on various charges including those under the Indian Penal Code and Uttar Pradesh’s stringent anti-conversion law. Kumar said the arrested accused would be produced before the court and the police would seek their custody for further probe into the case.
(Based on PTI inputs)
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