A Saudi interviewer once asked a prominent Indian maulana why he had made mass conversions to Islam his life’s mission.
The maulana answered: “154,000 people die every day across the world. Of these, 124,000 die in ‘kufr’ and ‘shirk’. That means they are sent straight into ‘dojakh ki aag’ to burn there forever.”
He went on to say: “In the time I took to say this, fifteen more people have been thrown into that fire. They are already burning; nothing can be done for them now… What troubles me is that none of these thousands of people were given an invitation to Islam that could have saved them.”
Who is this cleric & why he was arrested
He is Maulana Kalim Siddiqui who, in 2024, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a special National Investigation Agency court in Lucknow, along with 11 other people namely Maulana Umar Gautam, Arshan Mustafa, Adam, Jahangir Qasmi, Kaushar Alam, Faraz Babullah Shah, Irfan Sheikh, Salahuddin Zainuddin Sheikh, Sarfaraz Ali Jafari, Mohd Atif and Abdullah Umar.
They were convicted under Sections 121 A (conspiring to commit certain offences against the state), 123 (concealing with intent to facilitate a design to wage war), 153 A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc.) and under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.
Siddiqui is not an obscure preacher. He has long commanded influence among Muslim audiences in India and beyond as a religious figure. He is 66 years of age.
When Siddiqui was first arrested in 2021, Islamic institutions across India, including Aligarh Muslim University, staged street protests demanding his immediate release.
In their press note after his arrest, the ATS described Siddiqui as the “Khalifa of Dawah activities”.
The note alleged that he had overseen the conversion of more than five lakh non-Muslims, with a large number of such cases linked to Mewat in Haryana.
A resident of Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh, Siddiqui was accused of hiding behind the cover of social welfare work.
The ATS alleged that several trusts and organisations associated with him were used as fronts for Dawah activity.
These included Shah Walliullah Trust in Delhi, Global Peace Centre and Peace Mission in Mustafabad, Madrassa Sabeel-us-Salam in Shaheen Bagh, Dawat-e-Islam Trust in Mewat, and World Peace Organisation in Delhi.
Of these, Dawat-e-Islam Trust in Mewat was identified as a major centre of alleged conversion activity.
Testimony of one of his Hindu victims
When the ATS crackdown began in 2021, a video from Mewat emerged.
In it, a Dalit man named Memchand said he belonged to the Jaatav Scheduled Caste community and had been induced to convert to Islam by Abu Bakar, a disciple of Kalim Siddiqui.
Memchand identified them as figures linked to Tablighi Jamaat, the influential Islamic movement headquartered in Nizamuddin, Delhi.
He also alleged that the network specifically targeted Scheduled Caste Hindus by offering inducements such as money and land.
According to him, after accepting the offer, he was later tortured and compelled to attend jamaats.
Kalim Siddiqui’s own interviews explaining his tactics
Case 1
Public speeches and interviews by Siddiqui repeatedly return to one theme: eternal hellfire for non-believers.
That idea appears to sit at the centre of his messaging. In one interview, he said Muslims should feel deep agony when a non-Muslim dies, because such a person, in his telling, is headed for everlasting punishment.
In another talk, Siddiqui recalled receiving an invitation from a Hindu friend for his father’s terahvin. The letter referred to the deceased as “swargeeya”. Siddiqui used the occasion to argue that Hindus mistakenly believe their dead attain heaven, whereas, according to his theology, they are condemned to hellfire instead.
He contrasted Hindu cremation rites and mourning customs with what he presented as the Islamic understanding of the afterlife.
He framed his conversion work as humanitarian rather than coercive. In one interview, Siddiqui said that if the accidental burning of a dog’s leg can cause pain to an observer, then it should cause even greater anguish to think of human beings being thrown daily into hellfire.
He described the mission of inviting people to Islam as a duty of compassion and said the Prophet had sent Muslims to “save humanity.”
Case 2
In the same interview, he acknowledged that fear of hellfire is a major factor in why many people convert.
One account he narrated involved an elderly Sikh woman from Punjab who had long been ill.
According to Siddiqui, she first approached a Muslim pir to speak about her suffering.
The pir then asked how she would endure “hellfire”dozakh ki aag” if she could not bear even this lesser pain.
Disturbed by the idea, she asked what she should do.
The pir connected her to Siddiqui, who told her to recite the Kalma in order to avoid hellfire. She agreed.
He later recounted that although she wished to travel from Punjab to meet him, he told her not to come because she was unwell and life itself was uncertain.
He instead had her recite the Islamic profession of faith over the phone.
She died within days.
Siddiqui said he then sent a team to Punjab to ensure that she was buried according to Sharia rather than cremated according to Sikh rites.
Case 3
His public speeches also show a constant search for possible converts in everyday encounters.
In one talk, Siddiqui described meeting a Hindu taxi driver who addressed him as “bhai.”
Siddiqui said he used that moment to invite the man to his home, arguing that if the driver called him brother, he should accept a brother’s invitation.
According to Siddiqui, the man agreed, and within ten minutes had recited the Kalma.
Siddiqui then claimed that as many as 83 others from the driver’s family and social circle followed.
He attributed such outcomes to what he presented as the emotional simplicity of Hindus and their hunger for affection. In the same story, he said the driver later told him he converted because of the love he had been shown.
Siddiqui spoke openly elsewhere about this broader approach. When asked in an interview whether Hindus are difficult to convert in large numbers, he rejected the idea. The real problem, he said, was that Muslims had not approached them with sufficient warmth. Hindus, according to him, are deeply responsive to gestures of affection. He even cited the way hostilities can dissolve over shared Eid sweets as evidence of what he called India’s culture of love.
Tactics include not just fear and brainwashing, but also crime
A number of audio recordings, reported in the media and circulated on social media as alleged leaks from investigating agencies, suggested possible links to serious crimes.
In one such conversation, Siddiqui is heard asking a man to attend an event as a Da’i, or preacher inviting people to Islam.
The man says he has dedicated himself to Allah and adds that whenever he encounters “Jinns,” apparently referring to non-Muslims, he asks them to convert and kills those who refuse, saying Allah has given him a sword as well.
Siddiqui is heard responding with “shaabaash” more than once as the man repeats that people will either accept Islam or be killed.
Another leaked conversation purportedly featured Siddiqui discussing arrangements involving “upper caste girls” for clients, while lamenting that lockdown restrictions had disrupted this activity.
The ATS press note reflected these allegations directly. It stated that Siddiqui was also accused of involvement in trafficking women, particularly upper-caste Hindu girls.
In this video below, Sanjeev Newar, founder of Rashtra Jyoti, explains the underlying mindset and exposes the tactics used in conversion-focused outreach.
.
