All the accused were booked for conducting mass religious conversions of people within Uttar Pradesh, to covert them from Hinduism to Islam.
A Lucknow sessions court has convicted sixteen individuals in an illegal mass religious conversion case on various charges including cheating, waging war against India and inciting hatred between different religions.
The judgment was delivered by Judge Vivekanand Saran Tripathi.
The court has sentenced twelve, including Maulana Umar Gautam and Mohd Kaleem Siddiqui, of the convicted individuals to life imprisonment, while the remaining four were sentenced to ten years of rigorous imprisonment.
The convicted persons included Maulana Umar Gautam, Arshan Mustafa alias Bhupriya Bando, Adam alias Prasad Rameshwaram Kovere, Abdul Mannan alias Munnu Yadav, Mohd Atif alias Kunal Ashok Choudhary, Mufti Qazi Jahangir Qasmi, Kaushar Alam, Faraz Babullah Shah, Irfan Sheikh, Salahuddin Zainuddin Sheikh, Dheeraj Govind, Rahul Bola, Mohd Kaleem Siddiqui, Mohd Salim, Sarfaraz Ali Jafari, and Abdullah Umar.
According to the prosecution, all the accused were engaged in anti-national activities by conducting mass conversions of people within Uttar Pradesh from Hinduism to Islam.
The prosecution added that they promoted Islam publicly and provided rehabilitation for the converted individuals.
The UP Anti-Terrorism Squad (UP ATS) had arrested all the accused in 2021.
The criminal trial began in 2022. They were convicted for the charged offences on September 11 (Tuesday), before their sentence was pronounced on September 12 (Wednesday).
Besides illegal religious conversion, they were also accused of generating substantial funds to carry out such activities. The offences that they have been convicted under include the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 and Section 35 (punishment for accepting foreign currency in violation of the Act) of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010.
Source : Bar and Bench
