Daughters brainwashed by Kashmiri girls: Agra man whose complaint exposed illegal conversion racket

Agra: The father of two sisters in Agra, whose missing persons complaint about his girls exposed an illegal religious conversion racket and led to the arrest of 10 people from six states, claimed on Sunday that his daughters were "brainwashed" by some Kashmiri girls.

According to police, the probe began in March after the two sisters, aged 33 and 18, were reported missing. Investigations revealed that they were allegedly coerced into religious conversion and were undergoing radicalisation, they said.

One of the sisters had also put a photo of a girl holding an AK-47 rifle as her profile picture on a social media platform, police said.

Talking to reporters on Sunday, the father said, "My elder daughter used to go for coaching in the Khandari area in 2021 to prepare for a PhD course. There she met some Kashmiri girls who brainwashed her." "The two sisters used to live in the same room, and there was a lot of affection between them. The younger daughter was influenced by the elder one, and both of them left the house on March 24. Following this, a police complaint was lodged," he said.

Agra Commissioner of Police Deepak Kumar had said preliminary investigations found that the sisters were targeted by a gang involved in 'love jihad' and radicalisation. "We found clues about their funding originating from the US and Canada," he had said.

The Agra police have made 10 arrests in connection with the case. While three were arrested from Rajasthan, two each were nabbed from Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal and one each from Goa, Uttarakhand and Delhi.

The accused were identified as Ayesha from Goa, Ali Hasan and Osama from Kolkata, Rehman Qureshi from Agra, Abbu Talib from Muzaffarnagar, Abur Rehman from Dehradun, Mohammad Ali, Junaid Qureshi and another Mohammad Ali from Rajasthan, along with Mustafa from Delhi, the Uttar Pradesh Police said.

"The modus operandi of the gang involved illegal conversion and radicalisation bears a signature of ISIS," Kumar had said.