OPINION | CONVERSION THROUGH GAMING APP: PARENTS BEWARE

Reports about the busting of a gang targeting teenagers through a gaming app ‘Fortnite’ in order to convert them to Islam is really worrying.  This inter-state gang is active on internet. According to police, till now, the gang has lured four Hindu and Jain teenagers in Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Chandigarh to convert to Islam. Union Home Ministry and UP government have sought detailed report about the activities of this gang. I want to caution parents to keep a close watch on their children who use gaming apps on smart phones or laptops. They should keep a  watch when their children are involved in long conversations with unknown persons and leave their homes daily without telling their elders. If you notice changes in the habit of your children, please be on alert. The modus operandi of the gang is simple: they offer money, try to become friends and then through persuasion, ask children to convert to other religion. This gang has been operating in UP, Haryana, Punjab, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Reports say, this gang converted nearly 400 Hindus in Mumbra near Mumbai. In our show ‘Aaj Ki Baat’ on India TV, we played an audio conversation between a gang member and a young boy. Normally, this gang targets young boys and girls who play online games, offer them inducements and jobs, foreign travel, and the game begins by assuring them a win in their game. In Ghaziabad, a young boy went to a mosque to offer namaaz five times a day, but he told his parents that he was going to the gym. On suspicion, his  parents followed him and caught him red-handed. They complained to police and the imam of a local mosque was detained. UP Police has sent a team to Maharashtra to arrest other members of the gang. In the audio tape, the gang member was heard trying to convince a Hindu boy the advantages of converting to Islam. On Sunday, Nanni Alias Abdul Rehman, a moulvi at a local mosque in Sanjay Nagar area in Ghaziabad was arrested and a manhunt has begun to nab the second accused, Shahnawaz Khan alias Baddo, a resident of Thane, Maharashtra. Nipun Aggarwal, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Ghaziabad, said, police have seized electronic evidence and related documents, to establish that the online game required users to recite verses from Holy Quran to the teenagers in order to win. The teenage gamers were also shown videos of absconding radical Muslim preacher Zakir Naik and another preacher Tariq Jameel. Zakir Naik, accused in several cases, fled India in 2016. Police said, the accused used to talk with the gamers through a chat application and showed them videos of Zakir Naik and Tariq Jameel. The 47-minute-long audio tape is proof of how Hindu and Jain teenagers are lured by offering them inducements and dreams of a lavish life. In most of the cases, parents fail to know when their children have got converted. For the police, it is not easy to solve such cases. In India, every citizen has the fundamental right to practise any faith, but there is also a law which says converting a person to another faith through inducements or coercion is a crime. If an impressionable young mind is made to convert his or her religion, the crime is more severe. In such cases, however, it is difficult to collect evidence of inducement or coercion. In the case of this gang operating in Ghaziabad and Mumbra, police have obtained evidence and statements. Parents must remain alert. If they find their children having long conversations on phone, or leave home suddenly, they must keep a close watch. I will also add a rider. Any effort to defame Islam on the basis of two or four cases cannot be justified. Even Prophet Mohammed never approved of forcible conversion. When two or four Muslims carry out such conversion, they bring a bad name to Islam. We must not tar the entire community with the same brush.

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