UP's 'religious conversion' case now reaches Delhi

New Delhi: Days after arresting Islamic scholar Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui from Meerut on charges of religious conversation, the Anti-Terrorist Squad of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi Police jointly carried out a search operation in the Shaheen Bagh area of New Delhi on Tuesday.

Reportedly, based on a court's order the UP ATS conducted the search. Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui's organisation Global Peace Center is located in F- Block of Shaheen Bagh. Further, ATS has raided other premises related to Maulana Siddiqui. Meanwhile, documents related to funding have been reportedly seized by the ATS.

Siddiqui, the 64-year-old Islamic scholar, is a prominent cleric from Uttar Pradesh and also the president of the Jamia Imam Waliullah Trust. ATS officials claimed that Siddiqui was purportedly running India's "biggest (religious) conversion syndicate".

The Additional Director General (Law and Order), UP, Prashant Kumar alleged Siddiqui's Jamia Imam Waliullah Trust conducted illegal religious conversions under the guise of running "communal harmony" programmes. "Investigation shows that Maulana Siddiqui's trust received Rs 3 crore in foreign funding including Rs 1.5 crore from Bahrain. Six teams of ATS have been formed to investigate this case," Kumar added.

A total of 6 teams were formed, including the team of the team headquarters of the western zone of UP ATS to conduct the raid in Shaheen Bagh. Many desktop tablets and important documents were found in the raid. All documents will be presented in court.

Significantly, former Chair of the Delhi Minority Commission, Dr Zafarul Islam Khan, condemned these raids on Tuesday at a presser in Delhi on a separate matter. He told reporters that this was in line with the government's pattern of targetting members of a particular community and that he had known the Maulana for quite some time and that the allegations against him do not have much to stand on.

As per officials, 14 more people, including Maulana Umar Gautam, Maulana Kalim Siddiqui, Rameshwar Kawade aka Adam, Bhupriya Bando aka Arsalan Mustafa and Kausar Alam, have been arrested during the probe into the matter.