On Friday, April 29, the Gujarat Police arrested four more people in the case of forceful religious conversion in the Kakariya village of Bharuch district, Gujarat. The four accused have been identified as Abdul Samad Dawood Patel (Bakerywala), Shabbir Mohammed Patel (Bakerywala), Hasan Ibrahim Patel (Tisli) and Ismail Yacoob Patel (Delawala), all residents of town Amod, Bharuch.
In November last year, Praveen Vasava of Kakariya village had lodged a complaint alleging forceful conversion of Hindu tribals to Islam in exchange of money. The Amod Police had registered a case under Section 4 of the Gujarat Freedom for Religion Bill and Sections 120(b), 153 (B) (c), and 506 (2) of the Indian Penal Code.
The tribals were offered money and houses in some cases to accept the religion of Islam. Reportedly, more than 100 tribals from 37 families were converted in the year 2018 and the accused had not taken any permission from the Bharuch district collector. According to the reports, the miscreants were in receipt of funds from other countries for converting the poor Hindu tribals to Islam.
Earlier the Police had arrested 10 persons in the case and had booked them under the relevant sections of the Gujarat Freedom for Religion Bill and the Indian Penal Code. The accused had then admitted that they had received donations amounting to Rs 14 lakhs from foreign countries, of which Rs 7 lakh were collected by Rizwan Patel from a person named Ismail from Bahrain.
It is important to note that on April 24, BJP MP (Bharuch constituency) Mansukhbhai Vasava had addressed a public gathering and had demanded the delisting of converted tribals from benefits made available to the Scheduled Tribes (ST) community. He had slammed the forced conversions of Hindus and had said that law needs to be made for those elements who break Hindu dharma and who are into religious conversion activities.
He also had highlighted the menace of foreign funding and its direct impact on forced conversions. “This is a democratic country therefore these things go on. They work through foreign funds that arrive here to break this country. Foreign powers are working behind the curtains”, he had said.
Grooming Jihad and deceitful mass conversions have plagued several parts of India, especially in the Bharuch city of Gujarat. In a bid to contain the menace, the BJP government had amended the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act of 2003 in June last year. As such, fraudulent religious conversions and marriages involving forcible conversions or assistance for the same have been brought under the ambit of this law. So far the Gujarat Police has arrested 14 people in the current case. Further investigations are underway.
