Religious conversion via online gaming? Timeline of Ghaziabad conversion case; how minor was targeted

A new controversy has broken out in Uttar Pradesh, where a man was arrested for allegedly luring a minor boy and brainwashing him into converting his religion. The prime accused and the victim both were in Ghaziabad, while the former has been arrested.

According to Hindustan Times reports, the boy was lured to convert his religion through online gaming, which was eventually detected by the minor’s father, who is a businessman in Ghaziabad. However, the case got even more complicated afterward.

The prime accused in the case is a 23-year-old man named Baddo, who has been identified by the police as Shahnawaz Khan. He was also the former caretaker of a religious place in Ghaziabad, formerly identified as Abdul Rehman.

An FIR was registered against Khan by the businessman father of the minor boy after he was allegedly lured by Khan through online gaming apps. The father detected that his son was following the practices of a different religion, and decided to probe the matter.

However, the police revealed that this is not the first time that Shahnawaz Khan had resorted to luring young boys before. As per media reports, 3 Hindu boys and one 1 Jain boy were brainwashed by the man and ended up converting to their religion.

These four minor victims were converted using a popular online game called Fortnite, which was being used as the accused to run a conversion racket in Ghaziabad. The police said that the minor boys were especially targeted because they had more impressionable brains and were very interested in online gaming.

Shahnawaz reportedly created an online gaming ID under a Hindu name to gain the trust of these victims and would defeat them in the game. When they would lose, Khan used to ask them to recite verses of Islamic prayers saying it would help them win.

The accused also convinced these children that they would win in the games if they went to the mosque five times a day.

READ | DNA Special: Conversion conspiracy against children in Ghaziabad? Know the case of Abdul Rehman