Lucknow: With dreams of a happy married life, Sonu, a 30-year-old beautician from Bengaluru landed up in Saudi Arabia in 2021 to meet a man she had known only on Instagram. But within two hours of arriving in Saudi Arabia, her friend ‘Raju Rathour’ alias Waseem from Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur, threw a ‘mangalsutra’ round her neck.
Unknown to her at the time, Waseem used to work for a man called Jamaluddin, alias ‘Chhangur Baba’, who rose from being a small-time faith healer and seller of charms to running an empire from his village Rehra Mafi in UP. His stock in trade was converting women to Islam, according to the UP Police.
Back in Sonu’s life in 2021 in Saudi Arabia, Waseem asked Chhangur Baba to convert her. But since the Baba could not travel to Saudi at the time, he deputed someone else for the conversion. This, however, Sonu refused to submit to and after three months, Waseem finally allowed her to return to Bengaluru, but not before he took some “private” pictures, Sonu told ThePrint.
Since then, Sonu shuttled between Bengaluru, Saudi Arabia and Saharanpur as Waseem kept blackmailing her with the photographs.
“I came to Saharanpur out of fear on 4 May 2024, where I was held captive in their house in Rankhandi village. I was asked to eat beef, which I refused to eat. I was beaten up, and one photograph was uploaded on social media when I tried to escape. When I called up the local police, Waseem misled them. The police then facilitated a ‘compromise’ on a stamped paper in October last year and I was asked to stay back in Saharanpur,” Sonu told ThePrint.
Sonu also alleged she was gangraped by three of Waseem’s aides. Then too the police did not help her, she told ThePrint. She was then allegedly taken to Chhangur Baba’s house to be converted to Islam.
Sonu’s story is only one in a long list of allegations of conversion against Chhangur Baba, his son Mehboob, and aides Navin Rohra and Neetu Rohra. All of them were arrested between April and this week by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad, which charged them with forced conversion, forgery, cheating, etc.
The FIR was registered under Sections 121A, 153A, 417, and 420 of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code, as well as relevant sections of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, in November last year.
Sources in the UP Police said that three victims of the racket run by Chhangur have recorded their statements before the court under Section 183 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). All three women—Gunja, Manvi and Neelam—claimed they were forced into ‘marriage’ or conversion or both.
According to the FIR, Gunja was ‘entrapped’ by a man called Abu Ansari, who pretended to be called Amit, and whose family was involved with Chhangur’s syndicate. Gunja was taken to a dargah where Chhangur and his aides ‘brainwashed’ her into converting to Islam. She converted and married Abu Ansari, changing her name to Aleena Ansari.
The STF report states: “After accepting Islam and becoming Aleena Ansari, Gunja Gupta was asked by Chhangur through Abu Ansari (husband) to bring other Hindu women to Islam, for a price.” She was promised Rs 15-16 lakh for converting a Brahmin, Sardar or Kshatriya girl, and Rs 10-12 lakh for a backward caste girl, the report adds.
In a similar operation, Manvi Sharma from UP’s Auraiya district was also allegedly converted to Islam. As per the findings of the STF, she met one Meraj, who claimed to be Hindu. They were to be married, but before that could happen she was allegedly raped by Meraj’s father and brother. After that she was allegedly converted to Islam by Chhangur Baba, but she managed to escape after that and complain to the police in Auraiya.
Rebutting the submissions of the STF and the overall case, a legal counsel familiar with the case details stated that the “entire premise” of the case hinges on the flawed application of the laws.
He said that the FIR has been filed under Section 3 of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, which sets the guidelines for conversion in the state. However, section 4 of the Act, he argued, empowers only direct family members and blood relatives to file FIRs on conversion.
“The FIR filed by the ATS is based on the complaint of the STF, which claims to have probed the matter in its entirety, but the FIR is flawed in its application of the law. Section 4 inhibits the STF or any other person from filing the case of conversion against the accused arrested in the case,” the advocate who practises in the Allahabad High Court told ThePrint.
‘Official coercion and a locally silent approach’
The STF started inquiring into allegations of forced religious conversion in January 2024 and has allegedly found that Chhangur’s syndicate also forcibly converted 6 labourers from Balrampur district. However, none of them were from the Utraula block, where Chhangur lived.
According to Madhpur Gram (Chhangur’s village) Pradhan Amarnath Verma, this was possibly a strategy. “He might have wanted to maintain a clean image in the area of his residence to ensure his game is not exposed,” he told ThePrint.
Further detailing the modus operandi, the STF states that Chhangur’s syndicate used to file false police cases against poor individuals to force them to convert. Local government, police and judicial officials helped them with the false cases.
The agency has arrested one such official, Rajesh Upadhyay, who worked with the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Balrampur. For his help, Chhangur made Upadhyay’s wife a beneficiary in the proceeds of a 20,000 square feet plot in Pune.
“Arrests and intensive investigation loom large over all the members of this syndicate, irrespective of their position and employment status with the government. Some police officers on the radar have harassed some of the complainants at the behest of the syndicate. The entire conspiracy and the plot will be unravelled step by step,” a senior UP Police officer told ThePrint.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)