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Spend about Rs. 2 lakhs on a Christian and Rs. 5 lakhs on a Muslim conversion, says a letter of Dharma Jagaran Samiti

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Conversion_Agra

Lucknow: In a letter issued by a RSS regional pracharak of western UP, Rajeshwar Singh, on the letterhead of Dharma Jagaran Samiti, an RSS offshoot it was directed to the workers to spend about Rs. 2 lakhs on Christians and Rs. 5 lakhs on Muslim issues,” and that money needs to be collected from people to be able to hold such programmes.

In a letter to probable donors, it is claimed claimed that nearly 40,000 people were converted to Hinduism during last year alone, and out of them, nearly 2,000 were Muslims.

A copy of the letter sent by Rajeshwar Singh, regional chief of Dharma Jagaran Samiti, Western UP, based in Madhav Bhavan, Jaipur House, Agra makes this claim.

The letter further said “Last year there were paravartan (homecoming) programmes in 20 districts, in which 40,000 people returned to the fold of Hinduism, and out of them, there were 2,000 Muslims. In 2014, our target is higher. We have to hold more than 50 such events and bring nearly one lakh Christians and Muslims to our fold”, writes Rajeshwar Singh.

“As you know, much money is spent on such programmes, and we have to collect money from (Hindu) samaj, and the samaj willingly donates. Now, since more people will do the homecoming at more places, more money will be needed for such programmes…I would therefore request you to contribute to these programmes.

“We expect you to foot the bill for at least one such event and contribute towards the upkeep of one full-time workers.

“It costs Rs 2 lakhs annually to support one worker who works on Christians, and Rs 5 lakhs annually to support one worker who works on Muslims. We need such donations in the least”, writes Singh.

The Dharma Jagaram Samiti, Western UP, names Dr Manveer Singh as district convenor for Aligarh, Abhiram Goel and Ajay Jalesaria as co-convenors, Brajesh Kantak as metropolitan convenor, and Kashinath Bansal as Treasurer.

'Conversion' fuels parliament heat, Bajrang Dal upbeat

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New Delhi: The alleged forcible conversion of about 300 Muslims in Agra generated political heat Wednesday but the Bajrang Dal insisted it had done no wrong.

Opposition leaders in and outside parliament demanded to know the central government’s response to what they said was a breach of the constitutional provision of secularism.

Speaking at a Congress meeting in Kerala, party vice president Rahul Gandhi accused the central government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of triggering communal tensions.

“Their sole interest is come to power in the country. They are ready to use anything to come to power,” Gandhi said in Thiruvananthapuram.

“It doesn’t matter if people of different religion fight. It does matter to them if there is bloodshed,” he added.

In the Rajya Sabha, Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati called the Agra conversions an attack on the country’s secular fabric.

Mayawati was backed by opposition parties who sought a statement from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On Wednesday, organisers of the Monday event again defended their action.

Ajju Chauhan, a Bajrang Dal leaders, said: “It is being wrongly propagated that the converts had been promised ration cards. They already have voting and ration cards. “They have on their own opted to convert to Hinduism,” he added.

Meanwhile, Muslim groups in Agra’s Mantola area staged a protest against the conversion. A police complaint has been filed against Nand Kishore, the state convener of Dharam Jagran Manch.

Unfazed by criticism, Hindutva groups Wednesday held several meetings in the Taj city. According to official sources, the situation in neighbouring Aligarh district was tense as a similar conversion programme has been announced for Thursday.

The nearly 300 members of some 60 Muslim families living in a slum on Agra’s outskirts reportedly embraced Hinduism Monday. The Bajrang Dal said it had organised the event.

Later, at least one Muslim claimed that he and the others were tricked into attending a fire ceremony by Bajrang Dal leaders, and that they were promised a better life if they gave up Islam and became Hindus.

Azam Khan, a senior leader from Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Samjawadi Party, accused the BJP of vitiating the atmosphere in the state.

“The BJP and the RSS have no issue. The Modi government has failed on various fronts. Neither could it create jobs not bring black money stashed abroad,” he said. “They just want to create tension.”

CPI leader D. Raja said: “Forcible conversions are a violation of our constitution. The government should take this into serious consideration.”

In the upper house, Mayawati said: “Our nation is run by a constitution which has secularism as a pillar.

“Whichever party is in the government is responsible to take care of the safety of the life and religious beliefs of people,” said the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister.

“They (Muslims) were lured. They (Bajrang Dal) took advantage of their poverty to convert them.”

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the government was committed to secular ideals.

“We are as dedicated to harmony and secularism as anyone else. Secularism is not anyone’s monopoly,” he said.

“As far as this incident is concerned, an FIR has been registered. Naming a particular organisation for political reasons is not right.”

CPI-M’s Sitaram Yechury said: “The RSS has said that after 90 years they have their government in (Delhi). They say they will covert the nation into a Hindu nation.”

In the Lok Sabha, as soon as the house met for question hour, Trinamool Congress’ Sultan Ahmed waved a newspaper and asked: “What is happening in Agra?”

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan refused to allow a discussion.

(IANS)

Muslim families in Agra deny embracing Hinduism, say they were lured

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Conversion_Agra

Agra: A Bajrang Dal leader said Tuesday that all the 300 poor Muslims who he said had embraced Hinduism here will be given ration cards they badly lacked.

Amid claims by one of the 300 that they were forced to give up Islam, Bajrang Dal’s Ajju Chauhan said everyone in the group would be now taught Hindu rituals.

The Bajrang Dal organised the conversion ceremony Monday.

Chauhan, the group’s co-convener, said Tuesday that all those who converted to Hinduism would be “Sanskritised”. They would be registered as voters and would get ration cards.

He said the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), to which the Bajrang Dal is allied, had been working “hard for three months to persuade them to convert to Hinduism”.

The 300 members of some 60 Muslim families who reportedly embraced Hinduism Monday evening live in a slum on the outskirts of the Taj city — and are miserably poor.

Most of them had lived near Madhu Nagar on Gwalior Road for 17 long years after migrating either from West Bengal or Bangladesh.

Munira, one of the 300, alleged they were lured to the event on the promise of giving them a plot of land and ration cards.

“We were taken to a place where a fire ceremony was on,” Munira told ABP news channel. “We were made to sit there. We became panicky. We were told to pray to Hindu gods. We did whatever they told us…

“But now we are again reading the Holy Quran and our family members offered namaz today,” he added.

Some of the converts, picked from a colony of rag-pickers, claimed that they had been lured with incentives like a ration card and other cards that would entitle them to subsidized welfare schemes.

“We were told we will get ration card, Aadhar card, the police will not bother us. We are poor so what do we do?” said one of the converts.

Others like Sufia Begum got emotional and said, “Please forgive me and let us remain Muslims.”

However, the groups, which undertook the conversion ceremony, remain undaunted.

“Come to Aligarh on 25th, both Christians and Muslims will be converted under Adityanath’s blessings,” said Rajeshwar Singh, area chief of the Dharam Jagran Samanvay Vibhagh.

The episode, which has come after days of protests revolving around the ‘hate speech’ of Union Minister Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, has provided the opposition with fresh ammunition. Parliament is scheduled to debate on the rising cases of communal tension on December 17.

BSP chief Mayawati has said that these events were being organised by communal forces and that her party was against it. Rajiv Shukla of the Congress said that this was being done keeping in mind the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls in 2017.

Cases of cheating and promoting enmity have now been filed by policemen who visited the families late last night.

(With input from IANS)

RSS 're-converts' 200 Agra Muslims, says more in line

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Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

by Ishita Mishra, TNN

Agra: Members of at least 57 Muslim families were converted to Hinduism at a ceremony called ‘Purkhon ki ghar vapsi’, a mass conversion jointly organized by Dharma Jagran Samanvay Vibhag, an offshoot of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and Bajrang Dal in Agra on Monday.

RSS regional head Rajeshwar Singh said more than 200 Muslims were “brought back to Hinduism” in the mass event held in Madhunagar area of the city.

According to organizers, the converts will soon be given new names.

Talking to TOI, Singh claimed that around 5,000 more Muslims and Christians will be “brought back into Hindu fold” in Aligarh on this Christmas. “The grand event will be held at Maheshwari College in Aligarh,” he said, daring anyone to stop it.

With saffron flags hoisted on rooftops of makeshift houses in this slum cluster, and matras being recited by priests, members of as many as 57 Muslim families washed feet of Hindu idols to mark their return to the religion. Long vermillion marks were put on their foreheads and they were given Prasad to eat.

Later, RSS and Bajrang Dal activists gave them a ‘mantra’ to chant the whole day and prepared a list of all the ‘converts’, to get their voter IDs and Aadhaar cards made, with their new names.

Sharifa, 40, was seen debating the right way of performing an aarti with her daughter-in-law, Afsha, in a small temple that has been erected by RSS men in the slum in Madhunagar. An idol of goddess Kali has also been placed in the temple, as majority of people living in the area hail from West Bengal.

Sufia Begum,76, who is the oldest woman among the converts, told TOI: “I read Quran and offered namaz five times a day. Now at this age, I will read Ganesh aarti. I don’t find any major difference in the teachings of the two religions.”

“The RSS people assured us that they will provide us better place to live, better food and schooling for my grandsons. I don’t mind change of religion, as religion doesn’t give us food to eat.”

Rajeshwar Singh told TOI that RSS spends Rs 50 lakh every month on conversion of an average 1,000 families. “It spends Rs 8-10 lakh per month on fuel costs alone in west UP,” he added.

“We have re-converted 2.73 lakh Muslims and Christians in Braj region that includes Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Mathura, Firozabad, Etah, Meerut, Mainpuri and Uttarakhand since 2003. The upcoming mass re-conversion event in which some 5,000 Muslims and Christians will be brought back into Hindu fold will be headed by Yogi Adityanath on December 25 in Aligarh,” Singh said.

Singh also claimed that RSS has taken possession of as many as 60 churches across the state, where no Christians worship now, “as they have all been re-converted to Hinduism”.

“Ek din in girijagharo ki deewarein bhi gir jayengi aur hamara desh sirf hinduon ka hoga (one day these churches will crumble and our country will belong to the Hindus alone),” he added.

Ajju Chauhan, the Bajrang Dal leader who zeroed in on the slum in Madhunagar and organized the mass re-conversion event, was overwhelmed after the puja. More than three dozen RSS and Bajrang Dal members were guarding the pandal to avoid any untoward incident.

Talking to TOI, Aslam Qureishi, prominent Sunni leader of the city, said, “This is just a tactic of the RSS to misguide Muslims.”

Christians attacked allegedly by right-wing activists in Bastar

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In this file photo, villagers of Sirisguda at the Special Gram Sabha to ban the entry of non-Hindu religious missionaries. Photo: The Hindu

In this file photo, villagers of Sirisguda at the Special Gram Sabha to ban the entry of non-Hindu religious missionaries. Photo: The Hindu

Raipur: The Chhattisgarh Christian Forum (CCF) has alleged that 12 people from the local Christian community, were attacked by members of the right wing Bajrang Dal in Bastar district’s Madota village on Saturday. District officials have registered an FIR.

“An announcement was made through drum beats that residents of Kotwar village should assemble at 9am on Saturday to meet the sub-divisional magistrate, deputy superintendent of police and town inspector to discuss ways to douse tension between the two communities. They waited till evening, but nobody turned up. By evening, right-wing activists came in a truck and attacked Christians, accusing them of promoting religious conversion,” charged Arun Pannalal, president of CCF.

Quoting local Christians, Pannalal said, a week ago BJP MP Dinesh Kashyap had visited Bhanpuri village and me gram sabha t local Christians. The MP washed their feet and then made a public announcement that they had completed the process of “ghar wapsi” or home-coming to the Hindu fold. Since then tension has been brewing between Hindus and Christians over prayer meetings at the local church.

While CCF has accused the district authorities of being “hand in glove” with the “right-wing elements,” the Bastar district collector however, refuted the CCF’s allegations saying that there was a clash between two groups in the village and added that a FIR has been registered against the accused persons.

The present controversy is rooted in an attempt by Hindutva organisations to convert Christian tribals to the Hindu fold. A campaign launched in July this year by Vishwa Hindu Parishad had led to a ban on the entry of and alleged “propaganda” by non-Hindu missionaries, especially Christians, in more than 50 villages of Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region.

With input from Agencies

Imam slapped, pushed to the ground in Gujarat, for remarks on ‘Garba’ festival

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Imam-Mehdi-Hasan-slapped

Ahmedabad: Sufi cleric, Imam Mehdi Hasan was slapped and pushed to the ground by a member of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in Thasra court campus in Kheda district on Wednesday. The imam was arrested from his home in Rustampura area in Thasra taluka on Tuesday for his controversial remark on the Hindu ‘Garba’ festival, which he reportedly referred to as “demonic” and asked Muslim youths to refrain from participating in the “un-Islamic festival”.

According to local sources, about 200-250 workers of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) held demonstrations outside the court against him.

The incident took place on a day when Gujarat’s Minister of State for Home Rajnikant Patel issued a statement that there was no question of banning Muslims from entering garba venues as demanded by the VHP and the Bajrang Dal.

It was after this demand that Imam Hasan speaking to Gujarat daily Sandesh, termed the nine-day ‘Garba’ festivities “demonic” and criticised commercialisation of the event. His statement provoked a police complaint and his subsequent arrest on Tuesday.

The whole controversy started early this month, when a BJP legislator in Madhya Pradesh, called for a ban on Muslims from entry to the yearly ‘Garba’ celebrations, or the Gujarati dance festival to be held in several northern states in October.

Mehdi Hasan Modi

Incidentally, Imam Hasan was the same cleric, who in 2011 had offered a Muslim skullcap to the then chief minister of Gujarat Narendra Modi, which the latter had refused to wear it.

Imam sent to Judicial custody

Police have arrested Rakesh Patel, the VHP worker, who slapped the Imam. The Imam was arrested under IPS 295C under which he could be jailed for three years. Principal Civil Judge P. V. Bhatt sent the Imam to 14 days’ judicial custody as he refused to hire a counsel to defend himself and also refused to seek bail.

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