A Muslim cleric Mufti Qazi Jahangir Qasmi, and Mohammad Umar Gautam (formerly Shyam Pratap Singh Gautam) have been arrested by the Anti-terrorism squad of the UP Police under the state’s draconian anti-conversion law.
The Police in Uttar Pradesh have lodged FIR at the Gomtinagar police station in Lucknow, which accused the clerics of being involved in the conversion of deaf children and women to Islam, and more than 1,000 people have been converted so far.
“Both were arrested after interrogation. We have got important evidence, documents of foreign funding,” Uttar Pradesh ADG (Law and order) Prashant Kumar said at a press conference.
“The deaf and dumb son of a couple living in Kalyanpur, Kanpur, was converted and sent to South India. Thousands of such cases have come to light. The people were promised money and jobs in lieu of conversion,” he told reporters.
Hailing from a Rajpoot family of Fatahpur in UP, Shyam Pratap Singh Gautam (son of Dhanraj Singh Gautam) was born in 1962. He converted to Islam 35 years ago and became Mohammad Umar Gautam. He was living in Batla House for three decades.
Hundreds of Muslims have been arrested under the anti-conversion law. Several of them have been accused of love jihad, which is a conspiracy theory alleging that Muslim youths are running a jihadist mission to convert Hindu women by marrying them.
Scores of human rights groups and civil society organisations have raised strong concerns against the aforementioned law enacted by the Uttar Pradesh government.