After the National Security Act (NSA) was invoked against the two accused held for the alleged forced religious conversions of over a thousand non-Muslims, the noose tightened further against the duo when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a fresh case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
According to a senior ED official, the financial investigation agency has opened a case based on the ATS’s FIR into the alleged conversion racket with foreign connections. The two suspects, Mufti Qazi Jahangir Qasmi and Mohammad Umar Gautam, allegedly ran an organisation from a Jamia Nagar flat in Delhi to convert deaf and dumb students and other poor people to Islam.
They were apprehended by the UP Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) for the forcible conversions that were funded by foreign agencies, including Pakistan's espionage agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The ED will look into the foreign funding and money laundering aspects of this case.
Taking serious cognisance of the notorious religious operation, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had ordered that the Gangster’s Act and National Security Act (NSA) be invoked against the two accused.
The ATS said that the racket involved the conversion of deaf children and women to Islam and over 1,000 people were converted by the duo so far. More than a dozen children from a deaf and dumb school in Noida were also converted.
