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The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad on Wednesday arrested Islamic scholar Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui, who is one of the biggest clerics from western UP, from Meerut on charges of religious conversion.

His name cropped up during the investigation into the Umar Gautam case. Umar Gautam was jailed in June after the UP police rounded him up for allegedly running a conversion racket.

The 64-year-old Islamic scholar was on the radar of security agencies due to suspicious activities. He was nabbed as soon as he arrived in Meerut last night. He is currently being interrogated by UP Police.

Siddiqui, a resident of Muzaffarnagar, was arrested in connection with India’s largest religious conversion syndicate busted by the UP ATS, the police said.

“He runs Jamia Imam Waliullah trust that funds several madrassas for which he received huge foreign funding. Investigation shows Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui’s trust received Rs 3 crores in foreign funding, including Rs 1.5 from Bahrain. Six teams of ATS have been formed to investigate this case,” Uttar Pradesh Police ADG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar told the media on Wednesday.

The syndicate has converted around 1,000 people in India, Uttar Pradesh ATS Inspector General GK Goswami said.


Amanatullah Khan, the Aam Aadmi Party MLA from Delhi’s Okhla who was at the centre of the storm during the Shaheen Bagh protests, called the arrest “atrocity on Muslims”.

“Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui, a famous Islamic scholar, has been arrested before the elections in Uttar Pradesh. The atrocities on Muslims are increasing. The silence of secular parties on these issues is giving more strength to the BJP. BJP, how much will you fall to win the election?” he asked on social media platform Twitter.

“This is wrong. The BJP government has no work other than harassing Muslims,” Samajwadi Party MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq said on the arrest of Siddiqui.

Mufti Qazi Jahangir Alam Qasmi and Mohammad Umar Gautam were arrested in June from Delhi’s Jamia Nagar area for trying to convert deaf students and poor people to Islam, with alleged funding from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

, #UP #BJP ? pic.twitter.com/MtHt6PnygZ

Amanatullah Khan AAP (@KhanAmanatullah) September 22, 2021