UAPA tribunal upholds govt ban on Zakir Naik’s IRF

NEW DELHI: A special tribunal on Thursday upheld the Centre's ban on controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik's Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), saying there were sufficient reasons, including a threat to India's security, to outlaw it. The tribunal was set up under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act to examine the government's ban on IRF. Relying on evidence that included Naik's speeches, the tribunal, headed by Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal, said, "On analysing the speeches delivered by Zakir Naik, it is abundantly clear that the same are provocative and derogatory." "Talking of supremacy of Islam and comparing it with other... faiths is not the work of intellectuals and scholars. It has emerged from the material placed before the tribunal that Zakir Naik was actually using the IRF as a platform to propagate a radical version of Islam," it said. The tribunal saw merit in the evidence cited by additional solicitor general Sanjay Jain and standing counsel Gaurang Kanth on behalf of the government for the ban on IRF. They referred to evidence that 24 youth who travelled from Kerala to Afghanistan to join the so-called IS were regulars at IRF's office in Mumbai. The tribunal found merit in evidence linking the IRF to a man who allegedly converted youngsters to Islam and pushed them to Afghanistan. The tribunal also took a grim view of the "enduring impact" of Naik's provocative speeches, which are said to have "inspired the attackers who struck at Dhaka's Holey Artisan Bakery in 2016. "An overview of all the speeches depicts that the same has the tendency to incite the younger generation to convert to Islam and unify with terrorist groups," the tribunal observed. Naik's move to flee India strengthened the tribunal's conclusion.