UP ‘Conversion Scam’: What Does Yogi Govt Invoking NSA Tell Us? – By Tara Narula
The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the UP Police…. has seen fit to apprehend Mohammad Umar Gautam and Mufti Kazi Jahangir Alam, two clerics from Delhi…. Now, the UP chief minister has issued a clarion call for provisions of the National Security Act, 1980 (NSA), which provides for preventive detention, to be invoked against the clerics….
Even before considering whether the activities of the arrestees deserve the attention of the ATS, it is yet to be tested whether the offence alleged is an offence at all….
The clerics are alleged to have offered jobs, money, marriage to weaker sections of society as allurement to convert to Islam: If this conversion scam is indeed a bomb, perhaps the state should focus on assuring livelihoods to diffuse it, rather than deploying the ATS and threatening the imposition of the NSA…. The chief minister’s statement is also troubling since the State has shown its mind in the nascent stages of an investigation, before the investigating agency has brought a charge sheet….
