Prayagraj (UP), Feb 5 The Allahabad High Court has granted bail to a Tamil Nadu resident in a case involving alleged unlawful religious conversion in Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh.
The bail application was allowed by Justice Ashutosh Srivastava.
According to police, Dev Sahayam Deniyal Raj was the gang leader who lured people for religious conversion and in this way his gang had converted 70 people and was planning to convert 500 more when he was arrested in September last year.
The court passed the order 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 another co-accused Paras were in jail since September 30, 2025. They were booked under sections 3 and 5(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.
According to 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.
Deniyal had also claimed that a total of eight 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.
Deniyal's counsels submitted that he is innocent and falsely implicated.
The FIR in the case had been lodged at the instance of 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.
It was also contended that nothing incriminating had been recovered from the possession of the applicants.
The high court in its order dated January 28 said that without commenting on the merit of the case, a case for bail was made out and the relief is granted to the applicant.
Dev Sahayam Deniyal Raj v. State of U.P., (Allahabad) : Law Finder Doc Id # 2849456
