ghaziabad a 24yearold trader was arrested from alibaug near mumbai in connection with an alleged conversion racket that was being orchestrated through a gaming appshahnawaz khan maqsood who used the pseudonym baddo in his gaming app accounts is being brought to ghaziabad on transit remand he will be produced in a court in the ncr city on june 15for long maqsood was on the radar of ghaziabad police probing complaints of conversion a team looking for him was camping in mumbai since june 1 after they got information that he was hiding somewhere in the citypolice said maqsood would be questioned on the extent of the alleged racket and his exact role in persuading the youths officials from the ats and ib will also interrogate him they said maqsood who was involved in import and export of beauty products came under the police scanner on may 30 when a man from faridabad alleged that someone named baddo had befriended his son on a gaming app and persuaded him to adopt islam the father told police his son was lying about going to the gym and instead visiting a mosque in sanjay nagar of ghaziabad for prayersfive days later a member of the sanjay nagar mosque committee abdul rehman was arrested for his alleged role in the conversion of four teenagers two from ghaziabad and one each from faridabad and chandigarhpolice are now probing if maqsood and rehman were working together we have not been able to establish any link between the two yet but we have to question maqsood to know more about the case and its extent we suspect both would talk to their targets over the phone said abhishek srivastava acp kavi nagarpolice are scanning a laptop and cellphone found with maqsood ever since the conversion racket came to the fore maqsood went into hiding he was constantly changing his location and rarely used the phone but whenever he did he would destroy the sim later and take a new one he owns a business of beauty products in mumbai srivastava saidexplaining how the four youths were targeted the acp said the accused would reach out to them via the gaming app front note when the youths would lose a few games they would be encouraged to pray hardonce they agreed to offer prayers they would be allowed to win a few games this made them believe that it was actually the prayers that were working wonders srivastava saidthe teens the acp said would also be shown youtube videos on islam and public speeches by orators with time they would be persuaded to adopt the religion he addedone of the four youths targeted a kavi nagar resident had bought gaming tools worth rs 20000 from a shop in july 2021 the police have learnt we will question them all the officer said