Christian missionaries and fraudulent Pentecostal pastors have long been targeting poor and scheduled caste Hindus for conversion to Christianity. However, in Uttar Pradesh, it has emerged that several Christian conversion gangs are harvesting the souls of poor Muslim families for Christianity.
The infamous ‘Punjab model’ of Christian conversion with offers of money, education, healthcare, and jobs is being replicated in Uttar Pradesh. While poor and vulnerable Dalit and tribal Hindus have been usual targets of Christian missionaries, these missionaries are running district-level gangs to convert Muslim families.
Christian missionaries running “Mission Muslim” to lure Muslims to Christianity
In February 2025, six families in Hargaon of Sitapur, Katsaria and Kamalapur of Sidhauli have converted to Christianity. Similarly, in Ambedkarnagar and Sultanpur, 10 Muslim families have converted to Christianity and abandoned their Islamic attire, rituals and symbols. These converted families have put up pictures of Jesus Christ in their homes.
This “Mission Muslim” of Christian missionaries emanated from Shravasti and reached Ambedkarnagar, Sultanpur via Bahraich, Sitapur, Raebareli, Amethi, Fatehpur, Maharajganj, and Basti.
After interrogating several individuals affiliated with Christian missionaries in February this year, the security agencies have submitted a report to the Union Home Ministry. According to this, some Muslim families in the border areas of Ayodhya adjoining Basti Mandal have converted to Christianity and stopped performing Namaz and other Islamic rituals. Their children are studying in the prestigious convent schools of Lucknow and Barabanki instead of madrasas. Moreover, the women of the erstwhile family are doing self-employment by joining the Christian fundamentalist outfit World Vision organisation. The sudden improvement in the economic status of these neo-converts makes it evident that they have received financial inducements for converting to Christianity.
USAID-funded World Vision converting Hindus and other communities to Christianity
OpIndia earlier published an investigative piece on World Vision organisation which was receiving massive funding from the now-defunct USAID. World Vision International – one of the top recipients of USAID funds – to the tune of over $2 billion. World Vision India, in turn, received hundreds of crores every single year from the USAID-funded entity. While it pretends to be a humanitarian organisation, in reality, it is a Christian fundamentalist organisation that allies with other Christian fundamentalists, to convert unsuspecting Hindus, especially children and women. World Vision has been indulging in conversion activity in India for many years. It was first established in India in 1951. For over 70 years, World Vision received crores to convert Hindus and subvert Hinduism. It was only in 2024 that the Modi government revoked its FCRA license, denting its conversion activity in India.
The modus operandi
Notably, the Christian missionaries operating conversion nexus in Uttar Pradesh have a fixed amount of money for every work. For example, Rs. 20,000 is given to the person who converts the whole family and Rs. 15,000 is given to the person who gets the girl married to the youth who has converted. It has been found that some famous schools and reputed institutions are working as hawala agents and sending huge amounts of money to the missionaries, which is being used for conversion activities carried out on the ground by preachers appointed on the village level.
The work of a preacher is to lure poor and sick people to prayer meetings by promising relief from financial problems and illness. Missionaries have appointed preachers for each class, making it easier for them to proselytise their targets. Due to the persistent conversion activities of Christian missionaries, the Nat community who are primarily Hindu with a significant number of them being Muslims living in the border areas of Balrampur, Shravasti, have converted to Christianity by these missionaries. Those who convert to Christianity are provided a fixed amount per month alongside provisions for education and healthcare for their children.
Security agencies have also reportedly found that these conversion gangs are receiving funding from several churches.
A former Intelligence Bureau officer Santosh Singh has reportedly said that Maharajganj, adjacent to the Nepal border in Gorakhpur division, is in a bad condition in terms of religious conversion. Hundreds of Karawal (Scheduled Caste) families have converted to Christianity in Jungle Jogiyabari of Farenda tehsil here. Moreover, the entire Karwal Tola in Mathura Nagar has converted to Christianity under the influence of Christian missionaries who provide them with monthly financial aid alongside providing education for their children in convent schools.
Notably, the Christian missionaries are strictly instructing neo-converts to practice Christianity but not to change their names. This is done to avoid any legal challenges while also ensuring that the converted individuals remain integrated within their communities.
The former IB officer also said that the first case of conversion of Muslim families came to light in Pilibhit in the year 2020. After this, five Muslim families converted to Christianity in Maharajganj of Gorakhpur division adjoining Nepal and then in Siddharthnagar district of Basti division. However, the members of these families did not change their names.
Joshua Project
The former IB officer further pointed out that to understand the scale at which Christian missionaries are undertaking conversion activities one needs to check the data available on the website of Joshua Project. According to the information on the website of the US-based Christian conversion ‘research’ initiative Joshua Project, 24 lakh people are being converted to Christianity in India every year.
This initiative has classified Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and other religious groups into specific caste groups to make it easier to target them by appointing caste-specific “agents” and maintain a concise record of caste groups reached, unreached or minimally reached. There are a total of 2,272 caste groups of which 2,041 are ‘unreached’ as per their website.
Out of these, 4.5% are “minimally reached” and 5.6% are superficially reached. Of the total population of India, 95.5% of the population remains ‘unreached’ with 2.9% minimally reached and 1.7% superficially reached, as per The Joshua Project. Shockingly, the conversion rate in India is 3.9% while the global average is 2.6%. So far, The Joshua Project has reached 6 crore people, with 4 out of 100 people converting to Christianity.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Joshua Project has listed 893 groups of which 843 remain unreached.
The Punjab connection of Christian conversion ring in UP
The police recently nabbed one Harish Singh who was involved in a conversion attempt on 2nd March in the Ikouna area of Uttar Pradesh’s Shravasti district. Singh, a native of Uttar Pradesh had converted to Christianity five years ago in Punjab. After his conversion, Harish Singh began conducting Sunday prayer meetings, however, when security agencies tightened the noose, Singh escaped.
UP Police in action mode to tackle Christian conversion menace
According to SP Ghanshyam Chaurasia, a special team has been formed under the leadership of CO to investigate the matter. The police are investigating conversion activities in the sensitive Shravasti, Bahraich, Balrampur and Gonda districts of the Devipatan division bordering Nepal. In Shravasti around 340 teams are actively converting Muslims and other community members to Christianity. Similarly, in Baharaich 374 teams of Christian preachers are active, in Balrampur 330, in Gonda 340, in Ambedkar Nagar 347, Sitapur 326, in Ayodhya 333, in Maharajganj 398, in Siddharthnagar 345, in Amethi 317, in Rae Bareilly 323, in Pilibhit 346, and in Prayagraj 443.
Informing about the measures being taken by the police to tackle the Christian conversion menace, Inspector General of Police Amit Pathak said that the SPs of the four districts have been asked to closely monitor these cases and take immediate action. In addition, officers have been directed to prepare details of suspicious people alongside increasing surveillance in sensitive areas.
UP becoming a hotbed of Christian conversion activities
While Christian missionaries have spread their tentacles across the nation, their increased illegal activities in Uttar Pradesh have raised eyebrows. Last month, a huge uproar erupted in Lucknow’s Chota Bharwara over Christian missionaries holding Sunday prayer meetings and converting locals to Christianity. The local Hindus alleged that Christian proselytisers tempt them to change their religion. They lure them with a job and lakhs of rupees if they change their religion. On refusing to change their religion, they pressured them to sell their house and leave the area. The local Hindus said that these Christian missionaries were buying land and houses in the area at double the price.
In December last year, OpIndia reported that the Christian missionaries in the Awadh region are making efforts to promote religious conversions and influence voting patterns by adopting the Madhesi conversion model from Nepal. It was reported back then that districts like Sitapur, Barabanki, Bahraich, Shravasti, Ayodhya, Sultanpur, and Ambedkar Nagar are witnessing escalated missionary activity, with Balrampur, Shravasti, and Bahraich experiencing significant impacts due to forceful conversion. The involvement of Korean pastors with links to networks in Bangalore, Punjab’s Jalandhar, and Kerala funded by by donations from Brazil, the United States, and South Korea were involved in these illegal activities.
In similar Christian conversion racket was exposed in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad wherein five people were arrested from Sewa Nagar in Ghaziabad for converting Hindus to Christianity under the lure of providing jobs, money, education, marriage etc. Before this, the Uttar Pradesh police uncovered two separate conversion rackets in Amethi and Meerut.
