Balrampur/Lucknow: The sight of a man, riding a bicycle, carrying rings and other religious paraphernalia, was not unusual 15 years ago. But the fact that Jamaluddin had six toes on his left foot was definitely cause for comment—and memory—for residents of Utraula block of Balrampur in UP.
Cut to 15 years later, and Jamaluddin has transformed. Now known as ‘Chhangur baba’ (‘Chhangur’ being the Hindi word for someone with 6 toes or fingers), he was driving a Toyota Fortuner with a bodyguard, and handing around Rs 500 to people he met.
Well, at least until 5 July. Since then he has been in the custody of the Uttar Pradesh Anti Terrorism Squad on the charge of orchestrating large-scale conversion and receiving unexplained foreign funding.
The UP ATS arrested Jamaluddin and his associate, Neetu Navin Rohra, who goes by her converted name Nasreen, from a Lucknow hotel earlier in July. His son, Mehboob, and Nasreen’s husband, Navin Rohra, were arrested in April on the same charge.
The UP ATS has initiated a broader probe into an alleged syndicate of conversion to Islam and funding—mostly from the UAE—which resulted in assets worth crores for Jamaluddin and several plots of land. The UP ATS on Thursday arrested one more accused in the case, identified as Rashid Shah, who allegedly played an active role in the conversion racket and land deals.
The latest arrest coincided with a wide-ranging operation by the Enforcement Directorate at 14 locations—12 in Balrampur and two in Mumbai. Over Rs 60 crore has been identified in 22 bank accounts allegedly linked to the conversion syndicate, to which money was transferred from Middle Eastern countries, predominantly the United Arab Emirates.
“The investigation is not limited to uncovering the modus operandi behind mass conversion, but will also probe the entire syndicate, including funding from foreign sources, a network of agents both in India and abroad, and the extent of the conversion racket,” the UP ADG Law and Order and Chief of the Special Task Force, Amitabh Yash, told ThePrint.
Bicycle to Bajaj CT 100 and Toyota Fortuner
Speaking to ThePrint, a 40-year-old shopkeeper in Utraula market said he wasn’t in the least surprised that Jamaluddin or Chhangur Baba was now facing allegations of amassing immense wealth illegally.
“Every time he (Baba) used to come into the area, Naveen (his aide) used to go to the shops of locals, saying Baba has come directly to meet. People who had faith in his spiritual powers sought his blessings, kissed his palm and were paid Rs 500 each time,” the shopkeeper said, requesting anonymity.
This unabashed display of riches and pomp was a phenomenon of recent years, though, Madhpur Gram Pradhan Amarnath Verma said.
The eldest of the four sons of a farm labourer, from the neighbouring village of Rehra Mafi, Jamaluddin began his career as a ‘healer’ from a local shrine in Madhpur village.
“He used to sit on the ground with rings and other products outside the shrine, adjacent to his current sprawling residence in Madhpur. He also went around on a bicycle selling this wares to the villagers,” Verma told ThePrint.
Eventually, he moved from bicycle to a motorcycle and then the Toyota Fortuner. These and his sprawling house, part of which has now been demolished by the local district administration after his arrest, are a visual manifestation of his rags to riches story.
Jamaluddin’s first break came in 2005, when he was elected Pradhan of Rehra Mafi, according to three villagers who spoke to ThePrint. The political rise, however, did not continue for consecutive terms, and he went back to his ‘healing’ business and selling rings.
According to UP police officers, after losing the Pradhan’s job in 2010, he visited Mumbai a few times and it was at this time that he met Mumbai-based couple Navin and Neetu Rohra at a Dargah. From the Sindhi community, the couple and their minor daughter were “brainwashed” and converted to Islam, the UP Special Task Force has allegedly found in its preliminary probe. These conversions took place in November 2015 in Dubai, where they were issued a ‘Certificate of Embracing Islam’. However, the UP STF, in its preliminary investigation, found that their travel dates to Dubai did not match their date of conversion in 2015. Moreover, their identification documents such as PAN and Passport are still in their original Hindu names, the STF has found.
The same year, Jamaluddin’s wife Kutubnisa won the panchayat election from his village, winning 360 out of 1,000 votes polled in the election as per records of the UP State Election Commission.
By this time, Jamaluddin stayed mostly in his village, Rehra Mafi, except a trip to Saudi Arabia in 2018.
Overall, through an analysis of information from the Foreigners Regional Registration Office in Lucknow, the UP STF found that Navin Rohra and Neetu alias Nasreen made 19 trips each to the UAE between 2016 and 2020 and 2014 and 2019, respectively.
Rapid rise & Rapid unravelling
Sources in the UP Police and villagers confirmed to ThePrint that the Baba’s transformation started in the aftermath of the pandemic when the couple, Neetu alias Nasreen and Naveen, arrived in Utraula.
Police officials and residents pointed out massive land deals in Balrampur, including one large residential campus in Madhpur village, which was bought and built over the last few years.
Madhpur village pradhan Verma said that while high-end cars used to visit Baba at his Madhpur residence frequently, there was no clarity on either the extent of his syndicate or the source of his funds.
“Now that the agency has arrested him and we are looking at the reports, we can connect the dots of the story,” he told ThePrint in Madhpur, just metres from the Baba’s campus.
ThePrint had earlier reported that the Baba had local cops among his followers, and he extracted maximum advantage out of it to keep laws and agencies at bay.
However, a tip-off to the STF in January 2024 set the ball rolling for criminal proceedings against him.
By the time the STF shared its findings with the ATS in November 2024, it had allegedly unearthed an extensive network of agents and bank accounts used for the inflow of funds.
The STF found that in eight bank accounts of Neetu alias Nasreen, there were credits and debits of Rs 13.90 crore and Rs 13.58 crore between February 2021 and June 2021. In one such bank account with the Bank of Baroda, there was a credit of Rs 5 crore from a foreign source, which the STF has flagged as suspicious.
A similar scrutiny of Naveen Rohra’s six bank accounts by the STF has revealed an inflow of Rs 16.22 crore through the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system and a cumulative amount of Rs 18.68 crore from the UAE.
The UP STF has also scrutinised the eight bank accounts opened in the names of Chhangur’s firms, such as Asvi Enterprises, Asvi Charitable Trust, Asipia Hassani Hussaini Collection, and Baba Tajuddin Asvi Boutique.
However, the STF has been unable to scrutinise the six vostro accounts (bank accounts that a domestic bank holds for a foreign bank in the domestic bank’s currency) of Navin Rohra, as per the report filed with the ATS for the registration of the case in November last year.
Based on the FIR of UP ATS, the Enforcement Directorate opened an Enforcement Case Information Report on 9 July and scrutinised all the bank accounts linked to syndicate members and firms.
In its investigation so far, the federal probe agency has found over Rs 60 crore in funding, mainly received from the Middle East, in 22 bank accounts of the syndicate members and firms.
However, sources in the UP Police conceded “a lot of unknown elements” about the syndicate as of now, such as the extent of the number of conversions carried out by the syndicate, as well as the involvement of funds from abroad.
“The accused and victims are giving us differing numbers of people converted and the amount of money received by the syndicate. In the interrogation, Jamaluddin has revealed some facts which need to be developed further. There are a lot of details on the extent of both funding and conversion which need to be investigated,” a UP Police officer said.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)