New Delhi: The Anti Terror Squad of Uttar Pradesh Police has arrested two clerics from Delhi’s Jamia Nagar area for allegedly converting more than a thousand people to Islam.

Senior police officers said they suspect that the duo were acting on directions and monetary support of Pakistan’s ISI or some other international organisation.

According to police, the arrested men — Mufti Kaazi Jahangir Alam and Mohammad Umar Gautam, residents of Jamia Nagar, also run an organization named Islamic Dawah Centre (IDC), along with their other associates, which the police said works on converting people to Islam.

The police further said they have found that these men used to target people with weak financial backgrounds, elderly people, women and disabled lured them into converting their religion and adopt Islam in exchange of money, job, marriage or other facilities.

In this case, first Umar Gautam of Batla House in Delhi was arrested after which his accomplice Jahangir has also been arrested. Both of them used to convert people with fear and temptation. During their interrogation, the police found that Gautam himself converted to Islam.

“He had disclosed that they have converted at least 1,000 people to Islam so far. The two men have also disclosed that their IDC even received funds from international organisations with the purpose of converting people into Islam,” UP ADG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said.

The ADG said, “Both of the accused have so far converted also converted deaf children and women. Not only this but many women were also married after being converted.”

The matter came to light when parents of a student of Noida Deaf Society reported that their son is missing and was later forcefully converted to Islam, police said.

“In a similar case we came across another student of Noida Deaf Society from Gurugram who also was converted to Islam. It has been found that these men used to lure people to adopt Islam by promising to get them married, get them job money,” he added.

Both accused have been arrested and booked for promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion, criminal conspiracy and cheating.

According to UP ATS, the work of conversion is being done in Noida, Kanpur and Mathura in UP and also in some other States. It is also being said that the religious conversions were being done at the behest of the Islamic Dawa Center.

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