India to consider ban on preacher Zakir Naik if Bangladesh requests

With the name of TV evangelist Zakir Naik emerging as allegedly influencing several militants, including two terrorists, who were among those attacking a Dhaka cafe, the Indian government is preparing ground to take action against him, reports said.

The Dhaka attackers were not the only ones inspired by the controversial speeches of Mumbai cleric Zakir Naik.

Yazdani even attended Naik’s 10-day-long camp organised by Naik-led Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), as a volunteer in 2010 and listened to his sermons, sources told Times of India.

Naik, a controversial preacher from India, is banned in the UK, Canada and Malaysia.

Investigators probing the Dhaka terrorist attack are beginning to suspect that the militants who carried out the strike may have gone overseas to receive arms training and that they may have been influenced by the words of Mumbai-based preacher Zakir Naik and radical British cleric Anjem Choudary.

Meanwhile, Home Minister of Bangladesh, Asaduzzaman Khan, said that investigations show that a third country is connected to the terror attack.

Separately, Indian media reports said that extremist Hindu organization Shiv Sena, which is the far-right ally of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has the government to take strict action against Naik’s foundation. They are the anti-Islamic state of Iraq and Syria that has killed innocent foreigners. “Ibrahim Yazdani’s journey to Ahle-Hadees, a puritanical strain of Islam, actually started only after listening to Naik when he was a teenager”, a senior NIA official said.

Wondering why the media only presented a part of his quote, Zakir said, “I have said that for a thief, a policeman is a terrorist”. Shami Witness is the Twitter account of 24-year-old Mehdi Biswas, who is also facing trial in India for running propaganda for the Islamic State.

Biswas was charged for operating the “single most influential pro-ISIS Twitter account”. His Twitter account became inactive in August 2015 after terror charges were brought against him. He is widely popular in Bangladesh through his Peace TV, although his preaching often demeans other religions including other Muslim sects. Choudary, a Pakistan-origin British citizen, is facing trial in the United Kingdom for breaking anti-terrorism law.

Denying that investigators in any terror cases have approached him, Naik claimed that Indian intelligence agencies, too, have not given adverse reports on his activities.