The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (UPATS) on Monday arrested two clerics, identified as Mufti Qazi Jahangir Qasmi and Mohammad Umar Gautam, for allegedly being involved in mass religious conversion in the country.
"Both were arrested after interrogation. We have got important evidence, documents of foreign funding", Prashant Kumar, additional director general of police ATS and Law and Order, said on Monday.
The police came to know about the group on 3 June following the arrest of two Muslim men who attempted to attack a Hindu priest at Ghaziabad's Dasna temple. Gautam and Jahangir have allegedly forced around 1,000 non-Muslims to convert to Islam and radicalised them. The police said more than a dozen children at a school for the deaf and dumb in Noida were also converted to Islam.
“The probe revealed the accused were funded by some international organisations including Pakistan's spy agency ISI”, senior police official Prashant Kumar claimed.
“The Institution Islamic Da'wah Center in Delhi's Jamia Nagar was created to convert unsuspecting people to Islam in an organised manner. It also sought funds for the purpose”, he added.
The accused, including chairman of the Islamic Da'wah Centre, have been booked by the police under Uttar Pradesh's new anti-conversion law.
