The ATS arrested the accused from completely different components of the nation.
Lucknow: In a 2021 case of an unlawful spiritual conversion racket, a particular Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) courtroom in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, 10 September 2024 convicted 16 individuals, together with Islamic preacher Maulana Kalim Siddiqui and Islamic Da’wah Centre founder Mohammed Umar Gautam.
Particular Choose Vivekanand Sharan Tripathi fastened September 11 for listening to arguments on the quantum of the sentence and an in depth order is anticipated on Wednesday, September 11.
Based on the officers, the accused have been working an outfit concerned in changing college students with listening to disabilities and poor individuals to Islam in Uttar Pradesh with suspected funding from Pakistan’s intelligence company ISI.
Director Normal of Police Prashant Kumar, who was on the time holding cost of the ATS additionally, stated that Gautam lived within the Batla Home of Jamia Nagar in Delhi and had transformed to Islam from Hinduism. Throughout interrogation, he boasted to the police of getting transformed “no less than 1,000 individuals to Islam”, luring them with marriage, cash, and jobs.
The convicts operated an outfit named Islamic Da’wah Centre, accessing funds from Pakistan’s ISI and different overseas companies, Kumar had advised reporters.
Based on Particular Public Prosecutor MK Singh, “The accused have been working a nationwide unlawful conversion racket by spreading spiritual frenzy, animosity and hatred as a part of a conspiracy and had worldwide hyperlinks.”
Aside from Siddiqui and Gautam, the convicted embody Prakash Rameshwar Kavade alias Adam, Kaushar Alam, Bhupriya Bandho alias Arsalan Mustafa, Dr. Faraz Babullah Shah, Mufti Qazi Jahangir Alam Qasmi, and Irfan Sheikh alias Irfan Khan.
Gautam was held together with Mufti Qazi Jahangir Alam Qasmi from Jamia Nagar on June 20, 2021, in accordance with Uttar Pradesh Police.
The ATS arrested the accused from completely different components of the nation in varied operations after it lodged an FIR in Lucknow and launched an investigation into alleged unlawful spiritual conversion and overseas funding.
All these accused had been charged below IPC sections 417 (dishonest), 120B (prison conspiracy), 121A (conspiracy to commit offense towards the State), 123 (concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage struggle, 153A (selling enmity between completely different teams), 153B (imputations, assertions, and insinuations with intent to advertise hatred), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts supposed to offend spiritual emotions), 298 (uttering phrases with intent to wound spiritual emotions).
They have been additionally booked below the UP Prohibition of Illegal Conversion of Faith Act, 2021.
Among the many convicts have been Rahul Bhola alias Rahul Ahmed, Mannu Yadav alias Abdul Mannan, Salahuddin Zainuddin Sheikh, Abdullah Umar, Mohd. Salim, Kunal Ashok Chaudhary, Dheeraj Govind Rao Jagtap, and Sarfaraz Ali Jafri.
(With PTI inputs)