- Agra Police Commissioner Deepak Kumar said handlers in Pakistan helped influence the targets
- The gang also used the dark web and apps like Signal
- The online games on which people were targeted included Ludo
Investigation into the alleged religious conversion racket, in which 14 people have been arrested so far, has revealed that the gang behind the efforts was linked to individuals in Pakistan, who helped influence young people to make them accept Islam, the Agra police commissioner has said.
The racket was busted last week with the arrest of 10 people from six states following an investigation into two sisters, aged 33 and 18, going missing from Agra. On a social media platform, one of the women had also posted a picture of herself holding an AK-47 rifle.
Four more people were arrested as the investigation progressed.
On Saturday, Agra Police Commissioner Deepak Kumar said online games were sometimes used to target young people for conversion to Islam and handlers from Pakistan played a key role in the racket.
Police said the racket was being run under the leadership of Abdul Rehman, a resident of Delhi, who had converted to Islam in 1990, and Ayesha, a resident of Goa. Girls from Dehradun in Uttarakhand, Bareilly, Aligarh and Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh, and Jhajjar and Rohtak in Haryana, among other places, who were targeted by the gang, have been rescued.
Commissioner Kumar said the girls were made to talk to people with Islamic beliefs and they were told "venomous things" about Hinduism. Handlers in Pakistan, including two individuals identified as Tanveer Ahmed and Sahil Adeem, helped them in these efforts.
The girls were then added to WhatsApp groups where their brainwashing continued. If the girls' families protested, their minds were poisoned against them too.
Mr Kumar said at least three members of the group have knowledge of the dark web and used to communicate through it. The Signal app was also used to avoid interception by security agencies.
Another strategy to attract potential targets was to talk to them as they played online games. These games included Ludo, and once a conversation was started, the targets were slowly influenced by telling them things that are good about Islam. They were then taken down the conversion route.
