This week, I visited a colony in Ghaziabad where a conversion racket was being run in an all-Hindu area by a teacher from a local well-known missionary school with help of a government employee

Here’s what I found 🧵 The colony, Sewa Nagar, is home to 2,000 people from castes like Pal (gadaria), Valmiki, Jatav and Brahmin

There is a house called ‘Om Niwas’ owned by late Jagpal Singh Jatav. On ground floor lives his younger son Akash while on first floor lives his elder son Ravi

Ravi, a govt employee, converted to Christianity 2 years ago

Another mass conversion racket busted in Meerut, West UP

If you recall, I reported on a similar incident from Meerut recently, followed by a yajna to bring families back to Sanatana fold

Latest one had been allegedly operational for 10 years

A thread on what was uncovered🧵 Raid took place in Shankar Colony, Partapur area

On receiving a tip-off, activists and police entered a home and found its second floor converted into a fully functional church called ‘Masihi Prarthana Church’

Over 50 men and women were attending a Bible-reading session

Exactly 32 years ago, on 6 Dec 1992, a dhancha built during Babur’s invasion over a site widely believed to be Shri Ram’s birthplace was brought down with bare hands by thousands of karsevaks in Ayodhya

What really unfolded that day as seen through a core karsevak’s eyes? A 🧵 That day, karsevaks dismantled the dhancha (structure) using their hands and simple tools. In Ayodhya, locals and Sangh members dislike calling it ‘Babri’ or ‘mosque’ and refer to it simply as dhancha

Once the structure fell, chaos ensued. Some even lost their lives. Many were injured

By next morning, karsevaks started clearing the debris

A message was sent out to treat every rock and brick as prasad. Some broke bricks to share, others took mud. Within two hours, the site was cleared

By evening, the site was leveled. Then, a temporary temple was built with a cement platform, bamboo sticks and cloth. Ram Lalla was enshrined there

And it is at this very spot where he sits even today

14 Hindus were burnt alive in a mill very near to Sambhal’s disputed mosque in 1978

Rumours of a Hindu killing an imam and a sadhu performing puja there triggered this massacre

I spoke to the family of the mill owner, who was also killed

A thread on this forgotten tragedy 🧵 The mill, an ahaata spread over 4 beegha in Nakhasa Bazaar, belonged to Banwari Lal Goel, an affluent, well-respected man in Sambhal

He was known for his fairness and even Muslim families sought his help to resolve disputes, locals recall. He was also Sambhal president of VHP

Those wondering if Hindus of #Sambhal have made no efforts to sustain their claim on the disputed mosque site which they have always known as Shri Hari Har Mandir, well they did

But it stopped after a 1978 pogrom, where 23 of 25 officially recorded dead were Hindus

A thread 🧵 1. Sambhal has witnessed recurring communal violence, major ones being 1935, 1947 partition, and the horrific 1978 pogrom

In 1978, Hindus in Moradabad district made up less than 30%. The violence that year began on 29 March 1978 when Vinod Pramod, a Hindu paan shop owner, defied a Muslim League leader’s bandh call

That leader was Mohd Manzar Shafi and had recently got bail in a communal violence case two years earlier where one Muslim and three Hindus were allegedly killed

Shafi’s men unleashed violence. Academic accounts describe Sambhal as turning into a “virtual crematorium”

Yesterday I visited Sambhal, where heavy stone-pelting erupted on Sunday during a court-ordered survey of a disputed mosque structure

To my surprise, every Hindu local - minorities in Sambhal - referred to the property as ‘Shri Hari Har Temple’

Here is what I found. A thread 🧵 First, a bit about the area

The mosque, known as Shahi Jama Masjid Sambhal, is located in Kot area of Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh. Hindus and Muslims refer to their respective colonies as Kot Purvi (East) and Kot Gharbhi (Gharab is West in Arabic).

The street outside the mosque’s front gate (seen in video) is largely Hindu-populated and leads to a police chowki. Locals jokingly call this street - Post office road - as India-Pakistan border

2011 census put Hindu population in Sambhal at 22%. In Kot, Hindus said they are no more than 10%

Yesterday, I visited Meerut’s Ambedkar Colony, where 30+ families have converted to Christianity

They attended Sunday prayer services at a pastor’s house till his arrest

We organized a Yajna-havan there. Deepest gratitude to those whose support made it possible

A thread 🧵
This largely Jatav community has seen rapid conversions over the past 8-9 years, mostly through dubious "medical healing" promises when healthcare costs became overwhelming

As missionaries face global backlash, they prey on the vulnerable in India

How did a conversion racket find its way in a posh colony full of retired police and army personnel in west Uttar Pradesh?

A couple of weeks ago, a conversion racket was busted in Vikas Enclave, a colony in Meerut, western UP

Here’s what I found on the ground 🧵
Vikas Enclave, located on Rohta Road in Meerut, is home to retired police and army personnel

For three months, residents were observing an unusual gathering at the first floor of a three-storey house on the corner of the colony

Every Sunday, 30-40 people would arrive around 10 am, staying for about two hours. House owner would tell the neighbours it was ‘satsang’

Picture of the corner house:

Since I am among the privileged ones to receive an invite for #RamMandirPranPrathistha, let me live tweet my experience 😀

I had booked two flights from Delhi to Lucknow for today. Good decision as the other one got cancelled. One flight finally taking off after delay of 2 hours Scenes at Lucknow airport

With only a day left for #RamJanmbhoomiMandir opening, you may like to read my series of ground reports from Ayodhya about the temple struggle since 1850s

I spent a good two weeks in Ayodhya to understand the movement

Below is a thread of all my reports with context 👇 Who are Bairagis, what is Ramkot, and what role Bairagis and Ayodhya’s most visited temple Hanuman Garhi played in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri conflict in 1850

swarajyamag.com/reports/hanuma…

We all know that after demolishing the colony of poor #PakistaniHindu refugees, Jaisalmer administration in Rajasthan gave them 40 bigha land to resettle amid much chest-thumping

But do we know the ground reality?

Our @sewanyaya team visited the spot two days ago. A thread: Tha land is uneven, full of pits and ditches. There is no road, no water, no resources to build houses.

Land is such they cannot build a shelter using bamboo and tarpaulin as they do in other places

Majju Ram says discarded like a burden by admin

Do watch both the video’s twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

You see these kids dancing on Radhe Radhe? They are Hindu migrants from Pakistan living in Jodhpur; their families awaiting Indian citizenship

Living in slums where water is scarce, their houses and water tanks were demolished by govt. When @sewanyaya team visited this week + They said they don’t play or dance or sing for fear of getting thirsty. It was heartbreaking

We gifted nine 1000-litre four-later water tanks that should suffice for a camp. We also organised a party where kids danced and played and had sharbat to their hearts’ content ❤️ twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Gujarat court has given a verdict that Hindu daughters of a woman, who remarried and had conversion-nikah, have no claim on their mother’s property

A thread on the case:

Ranjan Tripathi had three daughters from her husband, who was a govt employee. After his untimely death + she got a govt job on compassionate grounds. Tripathi remarried, leaving her daughters with her in-laws. She had conversion-nikah with a Muslim man. Daughters filed a case in court to assert their rights on mother’s savings

In this thread, I am giving a list of songs hugely popular in qawwali events and religious processions that have been completely left out of Leftist and global reportage on ‘Hindutva pop songs’ on India

1. Kaafir ka sar kaat ke rakh denge Ek baar mein mit jayega 100 baar ka jhagda, bulaun kya Ali ko