A PhD scholar is covering a distance of over 200km on foot from UP’s Saharanpur to reach the Supreme Court with a petition to “reclaim his honour”.
The man’s move came after his name figured, inaccurately, on a list of thousand people who were allegedly converted to Islam by two Delhi-based Muslim clerics.
According to a report, while Praveen Kumar was given a clean chit by the UP Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) that picked him up for questioning last month, those in his village subjected him to social boycott and constant threats since his return home, reported foreign media. “I want the country to know what I am going through,” he told TOI on Wednesday, days after he woke up to find “terrorist" written on his door. “Go to Pakistan,” the message warned him.
On Tuesday, Kumar, a cane officer at a sugar mill, embarked on his “protest march” with little more than a backpack filled with essentials. The 32-year-old hopes to complete his journey in 11 days. The ATS had knocked on Kumar’s door on June 23, looking for ‘Abdul Samad’ after the leaked list of alleged converts had a certificate with Kumar’s picture and information on it. It said that Kumar had converted to Islam and was now Samad.
The case being pursued is against the chairperson of Islamic Dawah Centre (IDC) Mufti Kazi Jahangir Qasmi and Mohammed Umar Gautam. Their names allegedly came up during interrogation of two men accused in another case — an alleged “assassination plot" against Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, head priest of the Dasna Devi temple in Ghaziabad where a Muslim boy was beaten up after he entered the premises to drink water.