The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has granted bail to eight of the 16 convicts in Uttar Pradesh’s first major unlawful religious conversion case registered in 2021, while rejecting bail for eight others, including the alleged masterminds Mohd Umar Gautam and Maulana Kaleem Siddiqui.
Court’s reasoning The bench noted that all appellants have undergone more than four years and six months in jail, during trial and after conviction but it drew a sharp distinction between the two groups. The court also noted that Mohd Saleem, Rahul Bhola, Mannu Yadav and Kunal Ashok Chaudhari alias Atif have not been convicted of charges under Section 121A of the Indian Penal Code (conspiracy to wage war against the Government of India). Later, 15 others, including Umar Gautam’s son Abdullah Umar, were arrested. A division bench of Justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Justice Ram Manohar Narayan Mishra passed the common order on Wednesday on bail applications filed in 16 criminal appeals against the September 11, 2024, order of the special judge, NIA court, Lucknow. The remaining eight—Kaleem Siddiqui, Qazi Jhangeer, Kauser Alam, Adam, Dheeraj Jagtap, Arslan Mustafa, Faraz Shah, Sarfaraz Jafri and Sallahuddin—were sentenced to life in the trial court’s 265-page judgment on September 11, 2024.
For the eight denied bail, the court said: “….Allegations and nature of evidence in respect of offences in question is comparatively on a lighter side in respect of other accused persons, who are said to be their associates.
