Two Batla house residents, Mohammad Umar Gautam and IDC chairman Mufti Qazi Jahangir Qasmi have been detained by the UP anti-terror squad for converting over 1,000 deaf and poor individuals to Islam.
Yogi Adityanath-led UP government has ordered an action under National Security Act and has also directed to seize the properties of the accused under Gangster Act.
The duo has been sent to 7-day police remand from Wednesday 11 pm to June 29. The accused have been booked under Section 419, Section 420, Section 295A, Section 505, and Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code.
“We will question them on their modus-operandi and institutions catering to children with hearing and speech disabilities where the gang spread its tentacles. Bank transactions of the duo are also being scanned,” said IG, ATS, G K Goswamy.
Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said that the duo used to run an outfit that converts deaf and poor children and youth to Islam with funding from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
ADG Kumar quoted Gautam as saying, “I converted at least 1,000 non-Muslims to Islam, marrying them all to Muslims.”
“Besides the duo, all those associated with forced religious conversions would be arrested and imprisoned. Every member of the group will be traced and the network smashed. We are tracking their financial transactions and source of funds. We got clues on many more conversions from parents of underprivileged and physically challenged children who were forcibly converted and their sources are in touch with us. Police and intelligence agencies of other states too have approached us after the arrests,” said ADG Kumar.
As per the investigation, Umar Gautam who himself is a convert boasted before the police about converting 300 people every year. Gautam allegedly submitted that their main target was the economically weaker sections of the society including women, children, and the disabled.
They get women married to Muslim boys so that they don’t return to their original religious faith. As per the reports, Gautam also confessed that they have converted over 1,500 children of a school for the deaf and mute in Noida on the pretext of employment and money.
