In a four-page “open letter” released here, Naik posed five questions to the government as to what he has done to earn the tags of “terror preacher”, “Dr Terror”. “Why now? I have been preaching for 25 years not just in India but across the world. What exactly did I do now to earn the tags of ‘terror preacher’, ‘Dr Terror’? Of 150 countries where I am respected, I am called a ‘terrorist influencer’ in my own country. What an irony!,” the 50-year-old televangelist asked.
“Despite exhaustive investigations, not a single conclusive evidence of wrong doing was reported by any governmental agency. But now investigators are being asked to repeat and continue the probe. Why?” he sought to know. On the government’s action against his NGO, he asked why would the government renew IRF’s FCRA registration and then cancel it? And that it seemed “illogical”.
“Is there design to leaking confidential information of the government, solicitor general and the MHA? Is there a design to leaking selective government documents to the media?” the letter said. Naik, a medical doctor-turned Salafist preacher, said the entire row in the last few months have come as a “shock” to him and termed it as “murder of democracy and strangulation of fundamental rights”.
“This is not just an attack on me, it is an attack against Indian Muslims. And it is an attack against peace, democracy and justice,” Naik wrote in the letter.
On allegations of forced conversion, Naik, who has been away from the country for over two months, said, “While chasing IRF for allegations of forced conversions, why are the agencies ignoring the most basic proof? Where is the converted person and where is his or her statement? Isn’t this person the most basic proof of forced conversion?”
Donation to Rajiv Gandhi Foundation a ‘bribe’ to ‘shelter’ preacher: BJP
The Rs 50 lakh donation to Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, headed by Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, by controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s NGO was a “bribe” to “shelter” his “anti-national” acitivities, BJP alleged on Saturday.
Mounting a sharp attack on Congress, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused “vested interests” within the UPA government of protecting Naik as he showed a purported reply by then I&B Minister Manish Tewari in the Lok Sabha in 2012 where he had named Naik’s Peace TV as among 24 illegal foreign channels whose contents were not conducive to India’s security environment. He asked Congress why it did not return the donation given to it in 2011 when its own government had expressed security concern with regard to Naik’s TV channel.
Cong hits out at Modi govt
Congress on Saturday hit out at the Modi government, accusing it of hatching a “venal conspiracy of muckraking” to “slander, malign and defame” the party over Rs 50 lakh donation received by the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust from controversial preacher Zakir Naik’s NGO. It said the money was returned when the facts came to light about the organization.
“Modi government is running its usual diabolical agenda to slander, malign and defame through Goebbelsian lies meted out by Home Ministry in shape of mischievous and selective news plants.
“To top this venal conspiracy of muckraking, Modi government and BJP fielded Union Cabinet Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad,” party’s chief spokesman Randeep Surjewala said in a statement.