UP ATS Arrests Two Islamic Preachers Accusing Them Of Converting People, Muslim Leaders Question Arrest, Say ‘Conversion Not A Crime’

Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh Police on Monday arrested two Islamic preachers accusing them of converting around 1,000 people to Islam.

Dr Mohammad Umar Gautam and Mufti Qazi Jahangir Qasmi are residents of Jamia Nagar in South Delhi. They were arrested based on an FIR lodged against them at the Gomtinagar police station in Lucknow, which accused them of converting deaf children and women to Islam.

Dr Mohammad Umar Gautam, formerly Shyam Prasad Singh Gautam is a convert to Islam. Born in 1964 in Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh, Shyam Prasad Singh Gautam converted to Islam in 1986 after studying the Quran and the life of the Prophet Muhammad. He completed his MA in Islamic Studies from Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University, and according to various online accounts has been preaching about the teachings of Islam through the Islamic Da’wah Centre in Delhi, which he established.

The centre also extends Islamic education, legal assistance, and marriage, financial and moral support in different spheres of life to the people who need it.

The police have invoked several sections of IPC including Uttar Pradesh’s draconian anti-conversion law against them. They were booked under IPC sections 420, 120-B, 153-A, 153-B, 295-A, 511 and sections 3 and 5 of UP Anti-Conversion Law.

In the FIR, the police claimed that they were converting people to “change demography balance of the country” and “damaging communal amity by creating hatred among the people against their original religion”.

“These people are running a campaign to destroy the unity, integrity and sovereignty of the country,” said the police in the FIR.

The police also claimed that they were converting “poor people from weaker sections by intimidating them and showing the greed of job and money” at a mass level.

However, their arrest has drawn severe criticism from the Muslim community leaders, who have questioned the allegations against the Islamic preachers, saying that propagating one’s religion is a constitutional right and that conversion is not a crime.

Tweeting about the arrest, Former chairman of Delhi Minorities Commission Zafarul Islam Khan said

“Umar Gautam has been sent to jail in Lucknow. He converted to Islam early in his life when he found that while people close to him deserted him in his ailment, Muslim friends stood with him. He is accused of converting people to Islam. Conversion is not a crime – it is allowed”.

He also said that linking these conversions, which is forced, to ISI is a bogus charge which will fall in the court.

“No question of forceful conversion by him. He is a nice person, a good Samaritan. I have known him for close to 3 decades. ATS claims about his “ISI links” are bogus, will fall by the wayside. Look at hundreds of acquittals in recent decades,” he further said.

Delhi Waqf Board Chairman and AAP MLA Amantullah Khan called the arrest “an attack on our constitutional rights”.

“In the upcoming Uttar Pradesh elections, the BJP wants to protect its sinking ship using unconstitutional methods by hook or by crook. The BJP government should stop misusing the law and the constitution and they must release those who were arrested unconstitutionally,” tweeted Khan.