The Allahabad High Court has rejected the bail applications of 8 convicts booked in an illegal conversion case after noting that they had engaged in large-scale conversion and were also allegedly receiving huge funding from within and outside the country. The High Court, however, granted bail to other eight accused, considering that the allegations against them were comparatively on the lighter side.

The High Court was considering a criminal appeal filed by the accused convicts in a case registered under sections 120B, 153A, 153B, 295A, 417, 298, 121A, 123 IPC, Sections 3, 5, 8 of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 and Sections 11, 35 of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010.

The Bench comprising Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra and Justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan held, “Adopting, engaging in large scale conversion by means of allurement, threat, deceit, wrongful confinement and for that purpose receiving huge funding from within and outside the country with objective of converting India from secular to Islamic state... a conspiracy against government of the country. And it cannot be said that the case of the appellants does not come within the purview of Section 121- A IPC. Section covers conspiracy to overawe the Central or State Government by means of criminal force or the show of criminal force and for this actual use of force is not necessary.”

Advocate Abhishek Ranjan represented the Appellant, while Govt Advocate represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

The case originated with the lodging of the FIR on the allegations that some anti-social and anti-national organisations were destabilising the demography of the country by indulging in large-scale conversion on instructions of some religious organisations/syndicate / foreign elements and funding obtained from them, due to which the fraternity of the country is being disturbed. They were allegedly running a campaign with mala fide design targeting the gullible persons, deaf and dumb women, children, people of SC/ST and people of weaker sections for their conversion into Islam. After getting information from various sources and contents of the FIR lodged under Sections 419, 420, 295A, 505 and 506 IPC and an interrogation of suspects, these facts surfaced that Mohd. Umar Gautam was himself a convert to Islam from Hinduism and was undertaking a large-scale mass conversion of non-Muslims and people of weaker sections.

It became known that they had converted around 1000 persons from the Hindu religion to Islam, and they had also conducted interfaith marriages of these people. Umar and his associates had constituted an organisation, namely, National Dawah Centre in Jamia Nagar, New Delhi, with an objective to convert non-Muslims into the Muslim religion. It was also stated in the FIR that the other accused, Mufti Qazi Jhangeer Qasmi, a resident of New Delhi, is an associate of Umar Gautam and he had been issuing religious conversion certificates & marriage certificates in an unlawful manner.

During the course of investigation, the name of the other appellants surfaced, and they were chargesheeted for alleged offences by the Investigating Officer. The Trial Court convicted and sentenced the appellants. Aggrieved thereby, the accused convicts approached the High Court.

Reasoning

The Bench noted that a speech by Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui on a YouTube channel was retrieved by the Investigating Officer, in which he appealed to take back the region of Hindustan and make it an Islamic state. He is the founder of Jamiyat Imam Ali, which had received a huge amount of donations in different accounts. The Bench further noticed that the main accused, Umar Gautam, was running the Islamic Dawah Centre (IDC), which had evidence of huge funding from different sources, and he had also organised the Annual Revert Get-Together of such converted persons.

The Bench also found that a video/photo collected from him and co-accused mobile phone data had proved his guilt. The Bench noted that his son, Abdullah Umar, received Rs 28 lakhs in his ICICI bank account, out of which Rs.3 lakh 8 thousand was received from the UK. A sum of Rs.6000 was transferred by him to the account of Shahabuddin to pay this to a converted Muslim, Neenu Kanwar, for the purposes of religious conversion.

The Bench took note of the fact that the appellants had undergone more than 4 years and 6 months of imprisonment till date during trial and after conviction in jail custody.

The Bench rejected the bail applications of the appellants Mohd. Umar Gautam, Mufti Qazi Jhangeer Qasmi, Sallahuddin Jainuddin Sheikh, Prasad Rameshwar Kawre @ Adam, Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui, Irfan Shaikh @ Irfan Shaikh, Kauser Alam, Dr. Faraz Babullah Shah.

The Bench found that the appellants, namely, Mohd. Saleem, Rahul Bhola @ Rahul Ahmad, Mannu Yadav and Kunal Ashok Chaudhari @ Atif, had not been convicted for charge under Section 121A IPC. “As a result, appellants, namely, (1) Mannu Yadav, (2) Abdullah Umar, (3) Dheeraj Govindrao Jagtap, (4) Bhoopriya Bando @ Arslan Mustafa, (5) Sarfaraz Ali Jafri, (6) Mohd. Saleem, (7) Kunal Ashok Chaudhari @ Atif and (8 ) Rahul Bhola deserve to be released on bail in the light of totality of facts and circumstances of the case, the role atributed to them, the evidence regarding overact committed by them in the alleged offences”, it ordered.

Cause Title: Kunal Ashok Chaudhari @ Atif v. State Of U.P. (Case No.: CRIMINAL APPEAL No. - 4008 of 2024)

Appearance

Appellant: Advocates Abhishek Ranjan, Abhishek Singh, Amarjeet Singh Rakhra, Amjad Siddiqui, Ajai Pratap Singh Chauhan, Furkan Pathan, Indu Prakash Singh, Krishan Kumar, Mohemmed Amir Naqvi, Mukul Joshi, Najmussaquib, O.P. Tiwari, Prabhat Ranjan Pandey, Rahul Srivastava, Rajanish Kumar Tiwari, Rajesh Chandra Mishra, Rudra Pratap Singh, Salil Kumar Srivastava, Sameer Singh, Subhash Bisaria, Sushil Kumar Singh, Varun Kumar Gupta, Zia Ul Qayuim

Respondent: Govt Advocate, Shiv Nath Tilhari

Click here to read/download Order


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