The Uttar Pradesh Anti Terrorist Squad has detained three people including a sign language expert working in the Union Ministry of Child and Family Welfare in connection with the religious conversion case filed against Islamic preachers Maulana Umar Gautam and Mufti Qazi Jahangir Alam Qasmi.
Prashant Kumar, Additional Director General (Law and Order), UP Police, according to news agency PTI, identified the arrested expert for the deaf-mute sign language as Irfan Khawaja Khan from Maharashtra.
Khan has been arrested along with two others, Munnu Yadav alias Abdul Mannan, a convert from Haryana, and Rahul Bhola, a deaf from Delhi.
Kumar said that Irfan, who works in the Ministry of Child Welfare, has good contacts among deaf people.
Dr Mohammad Umar Gautam and Mufti Qazi Jahangir Qasmi were arrested based on an FIR accusing them of converting deaf children and women to Islam. However, their arrest had drawn severe criticism from Muslim community leaders, who questioned the allegations against the Islamic preachers, saying that propagating one’s religion is a constitutional right and that conversion is not a crime.
The FIR against Umar and Qasmi invokes various sections of Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2020 and Indian Penal Code. Apart from ATS Uttar Pradesh, the Enforcement Directorate is also probing the foreign funding and money laundering angle.
Muslim Organizations, Personalities Denounce Arrests
Denouncing the arrest of Umar and Qasmi, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) Vice President Prof. Mohammad Salim Engineer said, “in a democratic country, who can force someone to change his religion? Islam does not allow it at all. Our Constitution gives every citizen the right to choose, practice and propagate the religion of his choice. No one can deprive him of this right.”
“It is pertinent to mention that a vicious campaign is being run by vested interests to defame Islam and project Muslims as anti-national, Muslims are used as scapegoats to create false narratives and to divert the attention from the main issues, All India Dawah Centres Assosication (AIDCA) said in a statement.
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”.
“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.
Police Accuse Them of Money Laundering, ‘Brainwashing’
The role of the three leaders arrested on Monday was found to be “suspicious in the conversion case. The Anti-Terror Squad is interrogating them,” the ADG said, adding that nearly Rs. 1.70 crore transferred in the accounts had been trailed.
“This money has come between 2010 and June 2021. Money has been transferred in the accounts through cash and cheques. Rs. 50 lakh has been deposited in accounts from Dubai, Qatar, Jeddah and Abu Dhabi,” he said.
“During investigation, it was found that one of these leaders had also been in contact with Mohammad Umar Gautam, who was arrested earlier and is lodged in jail. Mohammad Umar had taken this religious leader several times with him to Halim Muslim College, where deaf students were brainwashed,” he said.
The ADG alleged that Irfan would approach students to embrace Islam and put them in touch with Gautam and Qasmi. Irfan had converted Munnu Yadav and Aditya Gupta to Islam using the same “ploy”, the ADG said.
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.
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Rushda Fathima Khan is the Staff Reporter for The Cognate.
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