Uttar Pradesh Conversion racket: Anti-Terrorism Squad arrests three more individuals

In the Uttar Pradesh Conversion racket, the Anti-terrorism Squad (ATS) on Sunday arrested three more individuals. The arrest comes a day after the UP ATS issued a helpline number (9792103156) and a mail ID (controlroom.ats-up@gov.in) inviting common people to share any information related to Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui and Maulana Umar Gautam, two key accused in the religious conversion racket.

In June, UP Police had busted the conversion racket, and taken into custody Umar Gautam. When Police grilled Gautam, he named Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui and claimed that he has converted more than 5 lakh people in the last few years. Thereafter, Kaleem Siddiqui was arrested and sent to 14-day judicial custody. He is to remain in custody until October 5, and is currently being interrogated by the UP police. 

'Maulana Kaleem received foreign funding': UP Police

Addressing a press conference after Kaleem's arrest, Uttar Pradesh ADG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar, informed that the scholar's Jamia Imam Waliullah trust received huge foreign funding of around Rs 3 crores.

"Investigation shows Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui's trust received Rs 3 crores in foreign funding including Rs 1.5 crores from Bahrain," the top cop said. He further informed that six teams of the ATS were formed to investigate the racket. 

Religious conversion case in Uttar Pradesh

Earlier in June, Umar Gautam along with eight others were arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police for allegedly running a conversion racket. Following the arrest, the UP Police had informed that the racket involved the conversion of deaf children and women to Islam. More than 1,000 people were converted.

Police statement further said that more than a dozen deaf and dumb children in Noida were also converted. The police said that during the interrogation, the arrested accused confessed to converting around 250 to 300 people to Islam every year.

Earlier in a press conference, UP ADG Prashant Kumar had said, "The deaf and dumb son of a couple living in Kalyanpur, Kanpur, was converted and sent to South India. Thousands of such cases have come to light. People were promised money and jobs in lieu of conversion."

(Image Credit-Republic World)