LUCKNOW: Day after Batla House resident Mohammad Umar Gautam and Jamia Nagar-based Islamic Dawah Centre (IDC) chairman Mufti Kazi Jahangir Qasmi were nabbed by UP Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) for illegally converting at least 1,000 individuals to Islam, chief minister Yogi Adityanath directed police to slap National Security Act (NSA) against the duo and seize their properties by invoking Gangsters’ Act.
Top sources in intelligence agencies told TOI that Enforcement Directorate (ED) may also be roped in to bust foreign funding of the network, which straddles five states and 10 districts of Uttar Pradesh.
Also, police teams have been dispatched to Haryana and Delhi to trace those forcibly converted from addresses found in seized registers.
Additional director general of police, law and order, Prashant Kumar, said, “Besides the duo, all those associated with forced religious conversions would be arrested and imprisoned.
Every member of the group will be traced and the network smashed.
We are tracking their financial transactions and source of funds.
We got clues on many more conversions from parents of underprivileged and physically challenged children who were forcibly converted and their sources are in touch with us.
Police and intelligence agencies of other states too have approached us after the arrests,” said Kumar.
IG, ATS, G K Goswamy, said, they have got a seven-day police remand of Umar Gautam and Mufti Kazi Jahangir from Wednesday 11 pm to June 29.
“We will question them on their modus-operandi and institutions catering to children with hearing and speech disabilities where the gang spread its tentacles.
Bank transactions of the duo are also being scanned,” said the officer.