Dr. G. Shreekumar Menon
A February 2026 tip-off about suspicious sexual and religious activities inside a Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) BPO campus in Maharashtra’s Nashik triggered a covert police operation, with undercover women constables deployed as housekeeping staff, exposing a coerced-sex- religious conversion racket with possible international links.
The case traces back to a complaint filed in February with the Nashik City Police by a political party worker. The complaint alleged that a Hindu woman employed at the TCS facility had begun observing Ramzan fasts, prompting suspicions of a clandestine religious conversion racket.
What followed was an unusual undercover exercise. As per media reports, four police personnel posed as housekeeping staff inside the TCS office, observing employee interactions over a period of roughly two weeks. The probe culminated in the first FIR, centred on a relationship between an employee and one of the accused, Danish Shaikh. Police said that the woman alleged Shaikh had sexual relations with her on the promise of marriage while concealing that he was already married and had children.
Soon after, more women employees, most of them aged between 18 and 25 and earning between Rs 18,000 and Rs 25,000 – came forward with similar allegations. In total, nine FIRs have been filed so far. Seven of them reportedly contain similar allegations, including sexual harassment, rape, stalking, and hurting religious sentiments. The Nashik Police deserves accolades for a brilliant operation and unravelling a covert sex cum foreign religion racket, a first of its kind in the IT sector.
An angle that needs to be probed is whether these affected girls were administered narcotic drugs without their knowledge. Many cases of sexual assault and rape are based on the use drugs, known as drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA), which cause victims’ loss of consciousness and inability to defend, making them vulnerable to sexual invitations.
At least seven employees have been arrested in connection with the case. Those named include Asif Ansari, Danish Shaikh, Shafi Shaikh, Shahrukh Qureshi, Raza Memon, Tausif Attar, and Ashwin Chainani. Another key mastermind HR manager Nida Khan, linked to an accused in the Red Fort bomb blast is currently absconding, with investigators examining her role in recruitment and internal processes.
During the investigation, police reportedly recovered WhatsApp chats and other digital evidence. Investigators are also looking into the role of a Malaysia-linked preacher, who, was introduced to some employees through video calls.
The above case has raised its ugly head when the government has introduced the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2026, in Lok Sabha on March 25, 2026, aiming to tighten government oversight on foreign funding to NGOs, linked to another foreign religion, which is hyperactive across India, in religious conversions, under the garb of social service and humanitarian aid.
In April 2026, a 19-year-old Muslim boy was arrested for sexually exploiting around 180 minor girls and recording over 350 obscene videos, in Amravati, Maharashtra. The videos were used to blackmail the girls and force them into prostitution. Some videos were widely shared online, and some were sold to pornographic sites.
In every State, especially in remote areas, many conversion traders are prowling seeking prey for foreign religions. Despite a few States passing strict anti-conversion laws, these conversion traders adeptly circumvent the laws, and create a big ruckus from fellow converters masquerading in the guise of NGOs in different parts of the country. As they have nurtured the media and many are on their payroll, negative reports are often blacked out.
How to deal with these conversion merchants and sex beasts? It is actually not very complicated or disharmonious. This writer recommends the following strategy:
1. All inter-religious marriages should only be solemnized in the office of the Sub-Registrar, after due notice in two newspapers – one vernacular and another in English. No religious ceremony, either of the boy or girl should be permitted. But, both type of religious ceremonies may be permitted, if both sides have no objection.
2. There shall be no name change of the girl in any official documents and identity documents. The girl shall retain the maiden name for a period of seven years from the date of marriage.
3. There shall be no religious conversion of any kind, for a period of seven years from the date of marriage.
4. There shall be no dress code, and food code of any kind, for seven years from date of marriage.
5. The couple shall live as a nuclear family, independently and separately from the boy’s family.
6. Children born out of the marriage shall not be admitted into either of the couple’s faith, for a period of seven years. Children should be brought up in a religion-neutral atmosphere.
7. Names of the children should be religion-neutral.
8. In case of divorce, the girl’s religion shall prevail, as also the laws of the religion she professes, for matters of property share, maintenance, and monetary compensation.
9. All foreign visits of the couple should be notified in writing to the local Police station and Immigration office, and prior permission obtained, in order to safeguard the girl from being trafficked as a sex slave, to any alien country.
10. In the event of any other kind of marital dispute, only the religious laws of the girl shall prevail, for all purposes.
When the nation is bringing the Women’s Reservation Act 2023 (106th Amendment), for reserving 33% of seats for women in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies, in order to empower them, why not a Bill to protect the women from fraudulent religious conversions?
To control the menace of religious conversions by the two foreign religions, using foreign money being pumped into the country, the government should consider imposing a stiff tax on them, or alternatively enact a law that all foreign funding should be given only to the government, which would distribute the funds for development, in areas needing them. This will obviate the need for NGOs, most of which are shady organizations. There are nearly 14,500, licensed organizations, receiving funding from the United States, Germany, and Italy. Kerala based Ayana Charitable Trust, Believers Church India and World Vision India, are the leading organizations receiving massive foreign funding for proselytization activities. Huge swathes of land are purchased in remote areas for a pittance, and the Church has emerged as the largest non-governmental landowner, allegedly holding around 7 crore hectares (approx. 17.29 crore acres). These 2025 estimates suggest that the Church holdings surpass those of the Waqf Board. Most of the lands are cleverly held in the name of educational institutions, hospitals, churches, or as agricultural land belonging to the Church. Traders in conversion have cleverly mastered the art of land grabbing. The widely quoted statement, of Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta is relevant for India also -“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land”.
Rampant, unchecked, money-funded conversions, are happening at an alarming rate in Punjab, Rajasthan, U.P., Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu. The Government of India and the State Governments have a legal and moral responsibility to protect Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains from being exploited by conversion-traders.
If these foreign funded proselytizers claim that the Constitution guarantees religious freedom and the right to profess their foreign faith, they need to be reminded that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains have an equal right to defend their faith, culture, customs and traditions. No foreign funded religious converters can be given a carte blanche to destroy a civilization, and culture, its indigenous faiths and belief systems and forcibly implant a foreign faith, in the name of secularism, using foreign funds.
Another devious trend that needs to be legally blocked is the practice of plagiarising Hindu Temple practices, rituals and symbols, from appropriation by the Church, and then claiming it as secularization. Even names of Hindu Gods and Goddesses are being usurped, and used for White European and American men and women, claiming to be saints.
Hindu politicians who very often support foreign faiths should remember that vote banks are not their permanent assets to be inherited by their progeny. Small vote banks have today enlarged into mega holdings in many Constituencies, many have become 100% dominated by foreign religion followers, and Hindus reduced to a mere minority. In such Constituencies, only a foreign religion practicing candidate gets elected, a Hindu candidate has no chance of getting elected. Many such Constituencies have mushroomed in almost every State, changing electoral equations immutably.
In the North-east there are claims of a separate Christian country, being planned. Many Assembly and Parliamentary Constituencies, in other parts of India, are getting transformed, into mini foreign religion settlement colonies. Wise and sagacious politicians, bureaucrats and jurists, should come together to restore the Hindu civilization as also the many indigenous faiths of the North-east. The only way to repel designs for a separate Christian country in the North-east is to draw up an ambitious plan to revive the indigenous faiths, that was prevailing there till the previous century. The Government should consider setting up a Ministry of Indigenous Faiths, to help revive ancient faiths especially in the North-east.
India cannot and should not be made into a battlefield for proselytizing foreign cults. Many mass movements focussing on “returning” to indigenous roots, reclaiming lost traditions, and calling back the spirits of ancestors, are now the trend in many countries. Slogans that emphasize protecting culture from “alien influences” are slowly gaining acceptance even in European and West Asian countries! Let us listen to the wise words of Heritage Explorer, Dr. Hage Tabyo “It is a matter of pride that Arunachal Pradesh is one of the few remaining places on this earth where indigenous faiths are the living systems. In other places, tribal religions have either drastically been modified or abandoned altogether due to proselytization or conversion to other faiths. In many of such places, the people are only now trying to rediscover the inner core essence of their original traditional religions. Such ones can be cited as an instance of the Seng-Khasi movement among a section of the Khasis of Meghalaya. After more than a century of conversion to Christianity, a section of the Khasi tribe wishes to return, revive and reinstate the pre-Christian, naturalistic indigenous faith called the “Seng-Khasi” religion. Similar is the case in Imphal valley of Manipur, where the dominant Meitei speaking Manipuri’s have been Hindu Vaishnavites …………. The incessant onslaught of alien faiths and cultures projecting themselves as the only saviours of humanity as well as epitome of modernity and civilization with huge resources and well prepared strategy having covertly and overtly”.
Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a K’iche’ Guatemalan feminist, activist, and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. The quote below comes from her acceptance speech in 1992. She is known for advocating for the rights of Guatemala’s Indigenous people and their faith ““Our history is a living history, that has throbbed, withstood and survived many centuries of sacrifice. Now it comes forward again with strength. The seeds, dormant for such a long time, break out today with some uncertainty, although they germinate in a world that is at present characterized by confusion and uncertainty.”
Indian politicians, bureaucrats, jurists and religious leaders of Hindu faith and leaders of indigenous faiths in North-east and every other part of the country, should give a clarion call for revival of indigenous belief systems, and also pave the way for bringing back, those who have been led astray to believe in foreigners.
The author Dr G Shreekumar Menon, IRS (Rtd) Ph. D (Narcotics), is Former Director General National Academy of Customs Indirect Taxes and Narcotics, and Multi-Disciplinary School of Economic Intelligence IndiaFellow, James Martin Centre for Non-Proliferation Studies, USA.Fellow, Centre for International Trade & Security, University of Georgia, USA Public Administration, Maxwell School of Public Administration, Syracuse University, U.S.A.AOTS Scholar, Japan
Dr G Shreekumar Menon can be contacted at shreemenon48@gmail.com
