MHA to law min: Can Naik be booked under UAPA?

NEW DELHI: The Union home ministry has sought the opinion of the law ministry on whether Mumbai-based Salafist preacher Zakir Naik can be booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for his speeches seen as instigating people into religious extremism and justifying terror acts.

According to sources in the security establishment, the home ministry, after having studied Naik's speeches from the past few years, found them to contain “objectionable, puratinical 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 government is exploring the option of invoking UAPA against the Salafist preacher, said to have inspired two of the terrorists involved in the recent attack at a Dhaka restaurant, 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 Islamic State.

“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 IS,“ said an NIA officer.

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