The situation of religious conversions is alarming: VHP Leader

Talking to ETV Bharat, the National spokesperson of Vishwa Hindu Parishad termed the situation of conversion in India as alarming and explosive.

New Delhi:After yet another exposure of illegal conversion racket from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, Vishwa Hindu Parishad has expressed concern over the spreading network of religious conversions and said that they are already on alert mode. Kaleem Siddiqui, a cleric aged 64 was arrested on Wednesday, by the Anti Terror Squad. Maulana Keleem Siddiqui was arrested in the connection of the same case under which Umar Gautam was arrested for involvement in illegal conversion of more than 1,000 people.
On this development, ETV Bharat spoke to Vijay Shankar Tiwari, the National spokesperson of Vishwa Hindu Parishad who defined the situation as alarming and explosive. "This practice of forced or illegal conversions has been going on since the Mughals came to our country. Today, there are few Muslims in our country who actually came from Arab countries, rest all are Hindus who were forcefully converted to Islam back then. This has been in practice before independence and continued after independence as well. The only difference today is that the incidents and nexus are getting exposed," said Vijay Shankar Tiwari.

VHP has been demanding a stringent central law against illegal conversion and mass awareness campaigns have also been run by the organisation but incidents of conversion keep coming out on a regular basis. Talking about the steps being taken, VHP leader appreciated the efforts of UP government. "Illegal conversion was always there but nexus of people are getting exposed only after the change in government in the state and centre" He said.

Reminding about the first reported incident of conversion which was exposed from Minakshipuram in Madhya Pradesh, Tiwari said that before that incident people were not aware of things like religious conversions.

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It is not only about religious conversion, the VHP is much worried about the modus operandi adopted for it. "There are different ways through which they target people, it may be through love Jihad, Land Jihad and also by offering help to the needy with a condition that they convert. Not only Muslims but Christians are also involved in such practices where they either forcibly convert or do it by tapping into people's greed," said the VHP leader.

Talking about the steps taken by the VHP to curb the menace, Tiwari said that mass awareness among Hindu community and working on their education, skill development, social identity and addressing their issues so that they become financially stable. "We have been working among the tribals and underprivileged to uplift them so that they do not choose the path of religious conversion just for money or some other greed. But there are conversions by threat as well. They buy property in a target area and then start spreading their net from thereby increasing their number. Slowly, they start targeting the ladies and force them to convert. Such incidents have also come to light" said Tiwari.

He said evidence of foreign funding for conversion has also been exposed and also use of social media to lure gullible people has to be stopped.

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