Illegal conversion case: Three more arrested for ‘trapping’ women
Agra police arrested three more suspects in an illegal religious conversion racket, bringing total arrests to 14 related to two missing sisters.
Three more people were on Wednesday arrested in connection with an illegal religious conversion racket unearthed by Agra police earlier this year, officials said.
To date, a total of 14 arrests have been made in connection with the case registered in March in Agra after two sisters, aged 33 and 18 years, from this district went missing. A court had previously remanded 11 of the previously arrested individuals to police custody.
The fresh arrests were made from ISBT here.
Elaborating on police action on Wednesday, the media cell of Agra Police Commissionerate said the names of the three suspects came to light during the interrogation of the 11 persons who were previously arrested.
Among the three is Junaid Qureshi, 30, from Dayalpur in North East Delhi and to whom a Dalit girl from Haryana was forcibly married, police said. The other two, Abdullah (20) and Abdul Rahim (27), who were arrested by police in Agra, hail from Mustafabad in North East Delhi.
The Dalit girl was rescued from one Abdul Rehman, who was arrested on Monday. A missing case regarding the girl was previously registered in Haryana.
The three accused arrested on Wednesday were suspected to have trapped innocent women in ‘love jihad’, and Rehman used to undertake religious conversion and prepare fake documents in this regard,” stated the press statement.
Rehman aka Rehman Chacha originally hails from Firozabad who had converted to Islam in 1990 before moving to Delhi. He had changed his name from Mahendra Pal to Abdul Rehman. Police were also said to be investigating a network involved in religious conversions with the help of funding from the US and Canada.
“Those working for the network used to target people of Hindu and Christian faiths,” said police commissioner Deepak Kumar, who clarified that there was no connection between Rehman and ‘Changur Baba’, who was recently arrested in another U.P. district on similar charges.
“The girl from Haryana, has told a magistrate in her statement that she was forced into ‘nikah’ with Junaid Qureshi and held hostage in Delhi. The two others arrested today (Wednesday) are the sons of Abdul Rehman and are actively involved in the racket,” he added.
Rehman is also said to be a close aide of Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui, who was arrested by UP ATS in 2021 and sentenced to life imprisonment by an NIA court in 2024.
The case registered in Agra includes charges under section 87 (abduction of women to compel her for marriage), 111(3) (organised crime), 111(4) (being member of organised crime syndicate), 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the Bhartiya Nyayay Sabhita and Section 3(5) of The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.
