Mumbai:
A dessert allegedly laced with an intoxicating substance has emerged as a crucial lead in the probe into the religious conversion case at the Nashik unit of IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).
According to an employee, the accused first became friends with him before he was trapped in the conversion process. He alleged that he felt heavily intoxicated and disoriented after having ‘sheer khurma’ at the house of Tausif Bilal Attar, one of the seven suspects, on Eid.
The accused then allegedly exploited his personal family grievances and mental distress to suggest “black magic” as a spiritual solution.
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Under this manipulative pretext, he claimed he was pressured into wearing religious symbols and filmed. At the same time, the accused sent fabricated negative performance reports to his superiors at his office to create professional instability and increase his dependency on the group, he said in a statement to police.
Sources suggest the hotel where the employee was reportedly coerced into consuming food against his religious belief is under police radar.
A key piece of evidence remains a photograph of him in a religious attire, which was allegedly uploaded to a ‘TCS Nashik’ WhatsApp group to document the ‘conversion’ process.
Investigators are tracing the specific shop from where a religious cap was seen being bought in viral videos. Efforts are also underway to seize a Maruti Swift car allegedly used to transport the employee to various locations.
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Besides conversion, several women employees at the office have also stepped forward with harassment charges against their colleagues. The police have arrested seven suspects so far and filed nine FIRs. All the seven accused were suspended by TCS.
The probe intensified following a major technical breakthrough by the Special Investigation Team. Nashik City Police said a primary hurdle was cleared after investigators bypassed the high-level digital security on the mobile phone of an accused, Danish Sheikh, at the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory (RFSL).
Sheikh had reportedly secured every individual file and application with separate passwords and Face ID, effectively stalling the technical analysis for days.
Following a special court order, the SIT escorted the accused to the laboratory to utilise his Face ID to unlock the device, granting authorities access to encrypted data and communications that are expected to provide crucial evidence.
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The police said the probe focuses on recovering physical evidence and corroborating the digital trail found on the suspects’ devices.
Mumbai Naka Police has taken formal custody of four key suspects — Tausif Bilal Attar, Danish Ejaz Sheikh, Shahrukh Hussain Shaukat Qureshi, and Raza Rafiq Memon — transferring them from the Nashik Road Central Jail under a court-issued warrant.
The accused face severe charges including sexual harassment, and acts intended to outrage religious feelings. The court has remanded them to police custody until April 29 to allow the SIT to investigate the broader network and potential funding behind the alleged conversion racket.