To curb the cases of forced religious conversions reportedly increasing across the country, the Ghaziabad police on Saturday arrested three persons for allegedly luring seven young men and women to convert their religion.

The incident came to light when the parents of one of the Hindu girls living in Ghaziabad’s Khora area had complained to the police that their daughter had been behaving strangely for several months by sometimes offering namaz and performing ablution. As the police investigated the matter it led to the arrest of all the accused trio.

The accused have been identified as Rahil alias Rahul Agrawal and Mohd. Musir, both residents of Delhi’s Sangam Vihar and Abdullah Ahmed alias Saurabh Khurana of Palwal (Haryana). 

Rahil worked in a Noida-based private company where one of the girls living in Khora area came in contact with him. 

Musir runs a coaching centre in Sangam Vihar, Delhi, while Abdullah alias Saurabh was earlier a student of Aligarh Muslim University and was now studying in a Deoband madrasa.

The matter came to light in such a way that one of the victims worked as a telecaller at a company in Noida’s Sector-62 area. When the girl’s father checked his daughter’s mobile phone, he came to know that his daughter had converted to a different religion.

When the girl’s father confronted her daughter about allegedly converting to Islam, she admitted converting her religion and was following the Sharia law. 

The girl also pressurised her own family members to convert their religion.  Later, on July 7, the girl’s father filed a case of alleged forced conversion against one of the accused Rahil in the Khora police station.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Vivek Chandra Yadav, said, “In 2017, Rahul Agrawal had visited Mohammad Musir’s Delhi-based coaching institute to attend coaching classes for class 12. After this Musir started brainwashing Rahul. In 2018 year he lured Rahul to convert his religion and changed his name to Rahil. Abdullah alias Saurabh Khurana lived nearby this coaching centre.” 

The DCP added: “Abdullah visited this coaching centre on a frequent basis. Abdullah changed his name from Saurabh Khurana by converting his religion while pursuing BDS degree in 2014 from AMU. Musir arranged for Abdullah and Rahil to meet at his coaching centre in Delhi. Later Rahil alias Rahul lured a girl from Ghaziabad working in a Noida-based company and fell in love with her.”

According to Sharia law, Rahil married the girl online and converted her religion to Islam. 

Yadav added that both Musir and Abdullah ensured that the girl converted her religion on the instructions of Rahil. 

The DCP said that the police unearthed more than 600 pages of chats, some WhatsApp groups, photos and videos from the mobile phones of the accused trio.

“The accused trio used to operate a gang and watched videos of controversial and banned Islamic preacher Zakir Naik. Some objectionable videos of the girl from Noida have also been recovered from Rahil’s mobile phone, which he could possibly have used in blackmailing the girl. Apart from this, the bank accounts of all the three accused are being searched.”

The DCP told that WhatsApp chats of the accused Rahil have been received from different people in Nepal, Karnataka and other states as well. 

According to the police, Rahil used to interact with the people from Tablighi Jamaat in different states across the country. 

According to the information received from the police, the accused allegedly converted religion of young men and women in a systematic manner. 

“They (accused) used to target young men and women who were emotionally cut off from their families,” the police said.

“The accused used to present Islam as the strongest religion before their victims and repeatedly focussed on some shortcomings of other religions. They used to weave such an illusion around their victims regarding Islam that the latter used to feel that Islam was progressive as compared to other religions and then tried to convert their victims to other religions.”

(The story has been published via a syndicated feed with a modified headline.)