E-Paper
‘Conversion’ case: ED conducts raids in 6 Delhi, UP locations
ED’s money laundering probe is based on an Uttar Pradesh police investigation, which began with the arrest last month of the alleged mastermind of the racket Mohammad Umar Gautam and a preacher Mufti Qazi Jahangir Qasim, both residents of Jamia Nagar in Delhi.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday carried out raids at six locations in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh in connection with allegedly forced conversions of differently abled children to Islam, agency officials said.
ED’s money laundering probe is based on an Uttar Pradesh police investigation, which began with the arrest last month of the alleged mastermind of the racket Mohammad Umar Gautam and a preacher Mufti Qazi Jahangir Qasim, both residents of Jamia Nagar in Delhi.
In Delhi, ED teams raided three places, including the office of the Islamic Dawah Centre and residences of Gautam and Qasim. In Uttar Pradesh, ED searched offices of the Al Hassan Education & Welfare Foundation and the Guidance Education & Welfare Society in Lucknow.
These organisations, ED said, were run by Gautam and have been playing an instrumental role in carrying out forced conversions. The central agency said it recovered several “incriminating documents” on Saturday, “which reveal large-scale conversion carried out by accused Umar Gautam and his organisations all over India”.
“The documents also reveal several crores of foreign funding received by the accused organisations for the purpose of illegal conversions,” said an officer, who did not wish to be named.
The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh arrested Gautam and Qasim from Delhi and claimed that they were running a “mass conversion racket” across India. Another person Salahuddin Sheikh was arrested in the case by ATS from Gujarat on Wednesday.
Police have said the accused persons allegedly received funding from international organisations and targeted differently abled children and other vulnerable groups for conversion to Islam. They were allegedly involved in the conversion of over 1,000 people over the past 18 months from different states, including Maharashtra, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, police said at a press conference last month.
According to ATS officials, Gautam and Qasim also lured girls from poor backgrounds to give up their religion and accept Islam, promising them jobs, and eventually got them married to Muslim men. The investigators have said that Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-services Intelligence funded the racket.
