In search of damning evidence of money laundering in the religious conversion racket, the sleuths of Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out raids at over half a dozen places in New Delhi and in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.

Earlier, the probe agency had registered a case of money laundering in connection with the religious conversion case.

According to well-placed sources, the ED sleuths carried out searches at the premises of prime accused Mohammad Umar Gautam who was arrested in connection with the case in Delhi. Gautam's residential and office premises in South Delhi's Jamia area were searched. Besides, the ED teams raided three places in Delhi, including the office of Islamic Dawah Centre and residences of Gautam and Jahangir Qasmi.

In Uttar Pradesh too, the ED sleuths searched offices of Al Hassan Education and Welfare Foundation and Guidance Education and Welfare Society in Lucknow that were being run by Gautam and played pivotal roles in carrying out conversions.

The Central agency maintained that it recovered several “incriminating documents” during the Saturday raids and they revealed large-scale conversions carried out by accused Umar Gautam and his organisations all over India.

“The documents also reveal several crores of foreign funding received by the accused organisations for the purpose of illegal conversions,” said an ED officer, preferring anonymity

Following the arrest of Delhi-based, Mufti Qazi Jahangir Qasmi and Gautam, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had ordered invoking of Gangster Act and National Security Act (NSA) against people involved in the conversion of the physically challenged children, women and youth.

Qasmi and Gautam set up the office of Islamic Dawah Centre at Jamia Nagar in Delhi and were allegedly running an outfit involved in converting physically impaired students and other poor people to Islam in Uttar Pradesh with funding from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The arrests were made following the registration of an FIR in the case at Lucknow's ATS police station.

Last Monday, ADG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar had told reporters that Gautam, who himself converted to Islam from Hinduism, boasted to the police of having converted at least 1,000 people to Islam, luring them with offers of marriage, money and jobs. He said the ATS had been working on intelligence inputs that some people were getting funds from the ISI and other foreign agencies for converting poor people to Islam and for spreading communal enmity in society.