Mumbai youth with links to Zakir Naik carried out 800 conversions: report

New Delhi: Rizwan Khan and Arshi Qureshi, arrested from Kalyan and Navi Mumbai respectively earlier this week, have converted around 800 people to Islam, according to reports.

Both are connected to controversial televangelist Zakir Naik's Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), officials said. Several documents and marriage certificates had been seized from Khan, which indicate that he and Qureshi had converted over 800 Christians and Hindus to Islam, said ATS officials.

But Rizwan said he ran a marriage bureau and did not conduct any forced conversions.

Rizwan and Arshi, along with two other organizations apart from the IRF, were working to carry out conversions on a very large scale, said officials.

The officials were quoted as saying that the organizations involved in conversion mainly target college students and jail inmates after providing them financial and legal help.

One of the organizations has rubbished the claims, but admitted that Rizwan Khan used to visit their office.