UP Police busts large-scale illegal conversion racket; 10 held from 6 states

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Police on Saturday said they have busted a large-scale illegal religious conversion racket and arrested 10 people from six states.

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

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

"Preliminary investigations found that the sisters were targeted by a gang involved in 'love jihad' and radicalisation," Agra Commissioner of Police Deepak Kumar said.

"We also found clues about their funding originating from America and Canada," he 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 modus operandi of the gang involved illegal conversion and radicalization bears a signature of ISIS," Commissioner Kumar further said.

The arrested individuals played diverse roles within this intricate network. Their activities included receiving illicit funds, providing safe houses for covert operations, offering legal advice, and providing other forms of assistance to facilitate the conversions and radicalization, the commissioner said.

Given the gravity of these incidents, specialized units of the UP Police, including the Special Task Force (STF) and the Anti-Terror Squad (ATS), have been roped in to assist with the ongoing investigation, Director General of Police Rajeev Krishna.

This action is part of ‘Mission Asmita’, an ongoing initiative aimed at dismantling such illicit syndicates.

Mission Asmita specifically targets criminals involved in serious offenses such as ‘love jihad’, illegal conversions, radicalization, and deliberate attempts to undermine national security by funneling international jihadist funding through clandestine networks, including the dark web, DGP Krishna reiterated.