UP Police arrests 10 from 6 states for running ‘religious conversion racket'
Police said during the investigation into the abduction of the sisters, aged 33 and 18, they found evidence indicating the involvement of a group operating across multiple states.
Uttar Pradesh DGP Rajeev Krishna confirmed the arrest of 10 people.
The police traced the Agra sisters to a house in Kolkata on Friday and they were rescued in presence of their family members, said a police officer.
Police said the accused would allegedly lure young women, particularly minors, across states through deceitful means for religious conversion and were receiving funds from Canada and other countries to run their operations.
Police said preliminary investigations suggest the group's link with organisations like PFI, SDPI and some extremist groups in Pakistan.
In the process of tracing the sisters, the Agra police detected the network of a group and secured non-bailable warrants against the accused. Eleven teams were dispatched to different states, including West Bengal, Goa, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Rajasthan, to make the arrests, police said.
Those arrested – all aged between 18 years and 35 years — have been identified as Ayesha alias S B Krishna from Goa; Ali Hasan alias Shekhar Roy, Ritwanik and Osama from Kolkata; Rahman Qureshi from Agra; Abu Talib from Muzaffarnagar; Abdur Rahman alias Rupendra Singh from Dehradun; Mohammad Ali and Junaid Qureshi from Rajasthan; and Mustafa alias Manoj from Delhi.
The accused were engaged in various occupations, ranging from private and government jobs to running businesses. One of their associates is abroad, police said.
According to the police, the accused were playing varied roles such as arranging and distributing funds, offering safe houses, providing legal assistance, supplying new phones and SIM cards, preparing documents for religious conversion, etc. Police said the number of religious conversions undertaken by the network would be clear after the questioning of the accused.
Agra Police Commissioner Deepak Kumar said they have obtained a 10-day police custody of the accused from an Agra court.
DGP Krishna said the fresh arrests were part of the 'Mission Asmita', under which two persons, named Mohammad Umar Gautam and Jahangir Alam Qasmi, were arrested earlier for their involvement in religious conversions. Recently, Jamaluddin alias Chhangur Baba and his associates were arrested for running an illegal conversion racket in Balrampur district.
Given the gravity of these incidents, specialized units of the UP Police, including the Special Task Force (STF) and the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS), have been roped in to assist with the ongoing investigation, Director General of Police Rajeev Krishna said.
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