UP conversion case: Maha cops get transit remand to take prime accused to Ghaziabad

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Maharashtra's Thane police was on Monday granted transit remand by a local court to take Shahnawaz Khan, the prime accused in an Uttar Pradesh case allegedly involving religious conversion of youngsters through an online gaming app, to Ghaziabad, an official told news agency PTI.

Shahnawaz Khan, who hails from Mumbra township in Thane, was arrested from a relative's place in Alibag in Raigad district on Sunday, the official said.

"He is being taken to Ghaziabad from Thane by road," the police official told PTI.

As per the police, Khan and the cleric of a mosque in Ghaziabad were booked under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act based on a complaint, reported PTI.

A man from Ghaziabad had lodged a complaint with the police last month alleging the cleric and Khan had unlawfully converted his son, who recently passed the class 12 board exam, to Islam.

As per the complainant, his son came in contact with Khan through an online gaming app and frequently spoke to him, following which he got inclined towards adopting Islam.

The boy told his father that he had converted to Islam after being convinced by Baddo, according to police.

Meanwhile, the Apex child rights body NCPCR has sought an inquiry by the Electronics and Information Technology Ministry against online gaming platform Fortnite and instant messaging social platform "Discord" for their alleged involvement in the religious conversion of a minor boy, according to the PTI.

In a letter to the Meity secretary, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) chairperson Priyank Kanoongo said it has come across a news report stating "a caretaker of a mosque in Ghaziabad and a man from Mumbai were involved in religious conversion of a minor boy through an online gaming platform Fortnite", the PTI reported on Friday.

"The minor boy was lured into conversation through the said gaming platform, Fortnite and then brainwashed into religious conversion over another social platform, Discord," the NCPCR alleged, according to the PTI.

The commission requested for an inquiry to be initiated against Fortnite and Discord, and an action-taken report in the matter.

(With inputs from PTI)