Earlier on Thursday, Union minister for information and broadcasting M Venkaiah Naidu indicated that Naik could face action if his preachings and teachings were found to be objectionable.
Advertisement
Naik, who is based in Mumbai, said from Makkah that he “totally disagreed” that he had inspired the terror attack in Dhaka.
“We will also soon issue directives to all universities to scan their records and seriously look into the matter of missing students vis-a-vis terrorism”, he added, underlining the concern the “missing” students were generating in the country.
According to sources from the state and central counter-terrorism units that have been monitoring Naik said that Ayaz Sultan, the leader of the Islamic State module in Malwani, Maharashtra was influenced by Naik’s speech.
Peace TV had applied for license twice, but was rejected. A public speaker on religion, Naik founded a television channel specialising in comparative religion called Peace TV in the year 2006. Col. Rathore said the Home Ministry has also been asked to keep a track and report to the I&B Ministry on any such broadcast. On July 1, two of the seven young militants, who struck at an upscale cafe in Dhaka’s diplomatic Gulshan enclave, were reportedly inspired by the Salafi tele-evangelist’s speeches.
The Home Ministry probe will cover the allegations that foreign funding to IRF was used in political activities and allegations that the NGO’s funds were used to induce people towards Islam and “attracting” youths towards terror, the official said. The report said that one of the terrorists had propagated on Facebook previous year quoting Peace TV’s preacher Zakir Naik urging all Muslims to be “terrorists”.
Meanwhile, supporters of controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik took out a solidarity march in Srinagar on Friday to condemn any action that might be taken against the scholar.
Advertisement
Government today chose to crack the whip on telecast by unauthorised channels, warning cable operators of action if norms were violated, a move that comes amid the escalating controversy over Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s speeches on “Peace TV”.
