Allahabad High Court Grants Bail To Tamil Nadu Resident Accused Of Unlawful Conversion Of Over 60 People In Mirzapur

The Allahabad High Court last week granted bail to a Tamil Nadu resident (Dev Sahayam Deniyal Raj) in a case involving alleged unlawful religious conversion in Mirzapur. UP Police has claimed that Deniyal was the gang leader who lured people into converting, and his gang has so far converted 70 people and was planning to convert 500 more when he was arrested in September last year. The bench of Justice Ashutosh Srivastava allowed his bail application considering the nature of accusations, severity of the punishment in the case of conviction, nature of supporting evidence and the reasonable apprehension of tampering with the witness. Deniyal and co-accused Paras were in jail since September 30, 2025 and have been booked under Sections 3 and 5(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. As per the case of the UP Police, the gang used to lure poor, weak and tribal people to convert to Christianity by offering them 'healing prayer meetings' and financial help. During interrogation, Deniyal had allegedly told that he was appointed as the field in-charge by the Indian Missionaries Society (Tamil Nadu) and he has been active in the area since July 2025. Allegedly, Deniyal had also claimed that a total of 8 missionaries work under him, to whom the society provides salary, allowance and money for preaching. These missionaries used to go to villages and connect women with church activities on the pretext of sewing-embroidery training and financial help. They used to gradually convert them. Seeking bail in the case, the Deniyal's counsels, Advocates Mary Puncha and Dinesh Kumar, submitted that he was innocent and falsely implicated. It was their primary argument that the FIR in the case had been lodged at the instance of one Indrasan Singh, who is neither an 'aggrieved individual' nor 'relative' nor 'immediate family member' of the 'aggrieved individual' and, as such, the initiation of prosecution on the basis of the alleged FIR is unsustainable. They relied on the Supreme Court's recent judgment in Rajendra Bihari Lal and Another vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and others 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 1021 wherein it was held that as per the statutory scheme of the unamended Section 4 of the 2021 Act, the initiation of prosecution for the alleged offence of illegal religious conversion stands circumscribed and may be set in motion only at the behest of the aggrieved individual or, in the alternative, by his or her immediate family members or blood relatives. Lastly, it was also contended that nothing incriminating had been recovered from the possession of the applicants. While the AGA opposed the bail plea, the Court granted him bail.Case title - Dev Sahayam Deniyal Raj And Another vs. State of U.P 2026 LiveLaw (AB) 59Case citation: 2026 LiveLaw (AB) 59Click Here To Read/Download Order

Allahabad High Court Grants Bail To Tamil Nadu Resident Accused Of Unlawful Conversion Of Over 60 People In Mirzapur

Sparsh Upadhyay

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