The Allahabad High Court has stepped in regarding the case of seven Muslim men from Bareilly who were allegedly taken from their homes and workplaces by unidentified individuals at different times in August. The court has directed senior Bareilly police officials to appear in person on September 8 to clarify their stance and respond to the accusations made by the detainees.
According to reports, the families of the men were neither informed about the charges nor the reasons for their detention. It was later revealed that the individuals in plain clothes were members of the Bareilly Police’s Special Operation Group (SOG), and the arrests were linked to allegations of operating a “religious conversion racket.”
The families claimed they were kept in the dark for several days about the whereabouts of the accused, which led them to file habeas corpus petitions. Alleging illegal detention and custodial torture, the petitions prompted the court to summon top Uttar Pradesh Police officials, including the ADG, IG, and Bareilly SSP, for an explanation.
Families of the seven have alleged that the arrests were arbitrary, claiming that police and members of the Special Operation Group (SOG), dressed in plain clothes, took the men into custody without providing any formal arrest memos, FIR copies, or warrants.
According to some family members, they were even asked to bring medicines for the detainees, which raised concerns about their health condition during custody, Maktoob Media reported.
When relatives were finally permitted to meet the accused, they said the detainees reported being subjected to severe beatings, electric shocks, and forced confessions while in the lock-up.
Police, however, have claimed that the seven men were detained after allegedly uncovering a “conversion module” involving the forced conversion of three individuals to Islam. The arrested men have been identified as Mohammad Abdullah (formerly Brajpal), Mohammad Salman, Mohammad Arif, Faheem Ansari, Abdul Majeed, Mehmood Beg, and Aqil. They were reportedly taken from different locations in Bareilly and neighbouring districts on separate days.
Mohammad Abdullah, a 41-year-old resident of Subhash Nagar in Kareli, Bareilly, was reportedly taken into custody on August 13 while working at a coaching centre in Ramganaga Tanda, marking the first arrest in the alleged “conversion module” case.
According to Abdullah’s lawyer, advocate Mohd Humair Khan, Abdullah’s wife Tabassum tried to file a missing person complaint at the police station on August 14 but was allegedly sent back home. Later, officers from Subhash Nagar Police Station reportedly came to her residence and asked her to sign a paper stating that her husband had been “found” and returned home.
Tabassum confirmed these claims and said the family was later informed that Abdullah had been detained and kept in police custody at the police lines for “converting to Islam.”
Abdullah, who was born into a Scheduled Caste Hindu family as Brajpal, embraced Islam in 2014 after studying the religion and changed his name accordingly. In December 2017, he married Tabassum following traditional Muslim practices, with the consent of both families. The couple has three children — a daughter and two sons — aged six, five, and two.
According to reports, both Hindu and Muslim families, along with their relatives, had attended Abdullah’s wedding, and no objections were raised at the time regarding Brajpal’s decision to convert to Islam and become Abdullah.
A source informed Maktoob that Abdullah was not presented in court during the last hearing and claimed that the police were planning a “ghar wapsi” — a Hindutva-driven campaign framed as reconversion to Hinduism.
The source further alleged that Abdullah was released from police custody on September 4 only after being forced to sign blank papers and coerced into confessing that he would reconvert to Hinduism and support the police’s narrative in court during the next hearing.
It was also claimed that Abdullah was pressured to give testimony against others whom the police had allegedly “framed” for converting him to Islam. Although Abdullah initially resisted, the source said he eventually gave in under police pressure and threats.
Additionally, the police allegedly picked up Mohd Salman and Mohd Arif from their homes on August 20 and 23, respectively, accusing them of “influencing” Abdullah to convert to Islam on the grounds that they had studied together in primary school as children.
Faheem, a barber, was taken into custody on August 22 by the crime branch while he was attending to a customer, allegedly in connection with “converting Abdullah” to Islam. According to police claims, Faheem was accused of performing Abdullah’s circumcision.
Another accused in the case, Mahmood Beg, has also been in custody, with his family alleging that he was forcibly taken from their home on July 20. Beg’s wife, Parveen Akhtar, approached the court after multiple appeals to senior police officials and complaints through the grievance redressal system went unanswered.
The family claims that 11 men, some of whom identified themselves as policemen, arrived near midnight, forcibly took Beg away, threatened his son Mudassar at gunpoint, and later allegedly demanded ₹1 lakh for his release.
The court, while scheduling the next hearing for September 8, has directed authorities to locate Beg and produce him before it.
Two more individuals, Abdul Majeed, whose sister’s husband had reverted to Islam about twenty years ago, and Aquil, a cleric at a local mosque, were also reportedly picked up by the police in a similar fashion. Their families allege that their whereabouts remain unknown.
Police have linked Mehmood Beg, along with two others, to the alleged conversion of Prabhat Kumar, a visually impaired man who is currently a professor at Rajikiye Inter College in Bulandshahr district, Uttar Pradesh.
Bareilly Superintendent of Police Anshika Verma stated, as quoted by The Indian Express, that the case came to light after Akhilesh Kumar, a resident of Aligarh, filed a missing person complaint for his visually impaired son, Prabhat Upadhyay, on August 15.
According to the police, a group of 4-5 individuals had allegedly lured Prabhat with promises of marriage and persuaded him to convert to Islam. Verma added that the same group was allegedly involved in the conversion of Brajpal Sahu, who now goes by the name Abdullah.
Following this, police registered a case under Sections 140(3) (abduction) and 351(3) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), along with provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. Officials stated that further investigation is currently underway.