By Muslim Mirror Staff

One of the vile claims made by the UP ATS in its chargesheet is that a group led by Maulana Umar Gautam wanted to “increase the population of a particular religious group likely to go against the current constitutionally chosen government and set up an Islamic State.”

The UP ATS has arrested Mr Gautam, an ex-Hindu who converted to Islam in 1986, and other Islamic scholars alleging that they were involved in illegal religious conversions.

The ATS claims to have a list of 1,000 people who were “forcefully converted” by Gautam. However, several of them have told media outlets that they embraced Islam out of their free will.

ThePrint reported that it traced 25 people out of those 1,000, who said they converted “out of (free) will” and were “never forced”. They added that Islamic Dawah Centre, an organisation headed by Gautam, only gave “legal assistance” to people who wished to convert and didn’t force anyone.

In its chargesheet, the ATS contended that Umar Gautam was receiving funds via hawala route from different countries to carry out conversions.

It has further said that Gautam and others “would look at those from the native religion (Hindu) with contempt and call them kafir.” This sounds very lame as the word ‘kafir’ is nothing more than a widely used expression in the Islamic tradition. It means ‘disbeliever’ and it has repeatedly been used in the Holy Quran for the people who deny the oneness of Allah and the prophethood of Muhammad.