The home ministry has sought the opinion of the law ministry on whether Mumbai-based preacher Zakir Naik can be booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for his speeches, seen as instigating people to jihad and justifying terror acts.
According to sources in the security establishment, the MHA, having studied Naik's speeches from the past few years, found they had "objectionable, puritanical and pro-terror" content. It wrote to the law ministry last week sharing these findings and seeking legal opinion on whether a case is made out against Naik under the anti-terror law.
The Salafist preacher is said to have inspired two of the terrorists involved in the recent deadly attack at a Dhaka restaurant. The development comes even as Kerala youth Ebin Jacob, brother of one of the 17 'missing' Keralites said to have joined the Islamic State, has alleged that he was forced by a member of Naik's Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), identified by him as R C Qureshi, to convert to Islam and join the IS.
The intelligence agencies are now trying to find out who this 'Qureshi' could be, as Jacob cannot recall his Mumbai address and does not even have his photo. "It is possible that 'Qureshi' was only a pseudonym," an officer said adding that any action against the IRF can be initiated only after 'Qureshi' is located and it is established that he indeed was working for the IRF.
Naik, who was in Saudi Arabia at the time his role as an inspiration for two Dhaka attackers came to light, was incidentally also named by the Yazdani brothers, arrested recently as part the NIA's crackdown on a Hyderabad-based IS module, as a terror inspiration.
Sources, however, indicated that Naik's direct role in the conspiracy would have to be establised to charge him in the said case. "Unlike Mufti Abdus Sami Qasmi arrested earlier for having radicalised members of the pan-India IS module headed by Mumbai resident Muddabir Shaikh, there is no proof yet of Naik having instigated youth to join the IS," said an NIA officer.