For the past few days Indian Media, specially national media has focused itself on the conversion rackets taking place in Uttar Pradesh. It has gain public attention and became kind of a bigger issue than COVID itself. If you see with their prospective it’s not something new and I don’t think it will be last time they will be reporting something like this. It can be also seen as way to gain attention as the election are nearing by. There has always been report on news channels about spreading hate towards a specific community.
But what really happened ?
Is everything we saw on the news channel is the truth or there is more to it?
Continue reading to know the whole truth.
On June 20 the U.P. Police Anti Terrorist Scot ( A.T.S.) arrested two persons, Mohammad Umar and Jahangeer Kasmi from Delhi’s Jamia Nagar in a case of alleged mass conversion.
An F.I.R. was filed in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow under various sections of I.P.C. and were also charged with the Sates Anti Conversion Law passed in November of 2020. A statement was released by Umar Gautam’s daughter on 26th June saying,” My father Mr. Mohammad Umar Gautam has been arbitrarily arrested on false charges. He is a proud convert himself, who lives a life of a law abiding citizen of India. He has also not received any illegal funding from any foreign source as alleged by media. These allegations are completely baseless.”
Meanwhile The Office of the Islamic Dawa Center (I.D.C.) at Jamia Nagar’s Jogabai extension remains closed. People living around Umar knew him as a respectable man. But due to fear of counterattack many of them refused to come forward to say anything.
According to the Newslaundry’s Report the people have sad that Umar used to help the people who wanted to convert the religion legally and have refused the claim that the man tried to convert people with force or by bribing the with money.
The F.I.R. names these two with the accusation of forced conversation which included, Missing Person’s case by 247/2021 filed by the parents of Aditya Gupta at Knapur’s Kalyanpur Police Station. The second known to be victim Manu Yadav, A resident of Gurugram, came in light of A.T.S. through social media. At Gurugram’s Babupur village Manu Yadav’s parents who had converted and changed his name to Abdul Manan, his parents are busy giving media Interviews.
According to his mother she last saw her son in the first week of June. 22 year old Manan id deaf and non-verbal. On February 17 Manan showed his parents a conversion certificate and told them he has accepted Islam as his religion. The certificate has been issued by Umar’s organization I.D.C. and was signed by Kazi Jahangir Kasmi.
According to Manan’s mother he stopped eating and became very violent on the thought of letting have Islam and his friends convinced him to keep patience and allegedly the parents agreed to his wish.
Manan’s interest in Islam began in 2017 but his parents refused let him being converted. His mother explains that his situation kept hating worse due to not eating and his mental situation was also not getting better so they agreed. The mother also thinks that his son drifted away from Hinduism due to unemployment. According to her in the December of last year Manan had his physical test for the examination he was preparing for but he failed and became more disappointed. The conversion group took advantage of it and told him that his gods are not helping him enough and if he decides to convert he will be given a government job, a house, land and will get married to a Muslim girl.
After Manan went missing in April, His father, Rajiv Yadav, a cab driver approached the Gurugram Police several times but there was no progress. He claims that he found videos and chats on Manan’s phone which proves that his son was being influenced. He handed over data to U.P.A.T.C. for further investigation. He also blames Manan’s friend Skaheel and two others who befriended him while he was perusing vocational course in welding at an ITI in Gurugram as being responsible for his conversion. The link between these friends and Umar is not clear.
On 28 June , Manan was arrested by U.P.A.T.S. It was claimed that Manan was behind the conversion of Aditya Gupta. In F.I.R. Manan was not accused with the conversion but with damaging the idols at his home and that he has become iradical with respect to Islam.
Aditya converted and changed his name to Abdul Kadir. He was a resident of Kanpur and is 24 years old. Abdul is also deaf and non verbal as Manan. He went missing in March. On 12 April 2021 was reported missing in Kanpur’s Kalyanpur Police Station.
Later Abdul told his parents through a video call that he is in Kerala and has converted to Islam. In June he returned home with a conversion certificate issued by the I.D.C.
Abdul’s mother acknowledged that her son has been inclined towards Islam since 2012. According to the mother her son has started skipping meals and has started getting up early and started paying the she came to realise that he was practicing Islam.
Kadir told Newslaundry that it is difficult for disabled people like him to find a job, hence they switch to another religion. He also said that he has been poor and disable his whole life and after paying and still not getting anything he turned towards different religions and when some of his friends told him that Allah will fulfill his wishes and so he decided to convert to Islam.
The another common link between Manan and Abdul other than I.D.C. is an educational institution at Noida. Both of them were enrolled at Noida Deaf Society. The building has been locked ever since the institution’s involvement came into light. There was some protest also some days ago and therefore two Policemen have been stationed outside the building.
The founder of the Society told the media,” We are collaborating with the ATS and providing support.” She also stated that at NDS they don’t teach religion and its limited to professional programmes only.
To counter allegations of forced conversion Umar Gautham’s family has issued videos of individuals who have came to IDC for documentation.
The initial arrest was made in Deli alleged with the victims from Gurugram and Kanpur who were studets at an institution in Noida.
According to UPATS, what seems to be a pan India racket actually has its rot in Ghaziabad. There has been several incidents taken place and has banned the entry of Muslims in April 2021.
In June 2021,two men who were converts had tried to enter the temple by hiding their identities, Narsinghanan , temple’s priest alleged that the men had came with the purpose to assassinate him. UPATS now claims that they got their lead about Umar Gautam from these two men.
There are concerns about whether the investigation is an attempt for religious divide in an election year. There are still some things unclear and missing in this case and UPATS needs to find as soon as they can.
What do you think about this whole thing please tell your thoughts in the comments below.
Thank you for reading .
