‘Fake’ conversion case: Court orders action against UP cops, complainant

The matter dates to May 29, 2022, when the complainant, Himanshu Patel, a resident of Sakatpur village in Bareilly and district president of Hindu Jagran Manch, accused Abhishek Gupta, a resident of Gorakhpur and former employee at Rohilkhand Medical College, of running a conversion programme with a team of eight people in Bichpuri village.

Gupta, who was posted in the CT Department of the college since 2007, lost his job and was arrested in the case under the sections of the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. Later, Kundal Lal, a resident of Bichpuri Nai Basti, was also arrested in the case. While acquitting the duo, the court said the plaintiff, Patel, was not eligible to file the complaint and the police could not examine any witness motivated for conversion.

“In this case, accused Abhishek Gupta not only lost his job, but he also had to suffer financial and social loss. Accused Kundan Lal has not even been described as present at the spot by any witness. He was not even wanted, yet he was arrested allegedly on the disclosure of accused Abhishek Gupta. It is clear that the police acted under pressure of the complaint made by the complainant for the sake of publicity and in an unsuccessful attempt to give legal shape to the baseless, fabricated and imaginary story. Due to this, valuable time, labour and money of not only the police but also the court was wasted,” said Additional Sessions Judge Gyanendra Tripathi. “The plaintiff, the witnesses, the policemen, the police station in-charge who directed the FIR, the investigator and the circle officer who approved the chargesheet are involved and they are the real culprits,” read the court order. The court ordered the SP, Bareilly, Anurag Arya, to take action against the complainant, witnesses Arvind Kumar, Devendra Singh and Ravindra Kumar, then police station in-charge of Bithari Chainpur, Shitanshu Sharma, the investigators and the circle officer who approved the chargesheet.