Zakir Naik to leave for African tour

Dr. Zakir Naik, the Mumbai-based Islamic preacher, who has run into trouble for his controversial speeches, will not be returning to the city and will instead be heading to African nations.

Naik was scheduled to come to city on Monday night and address the media on Tuesday in a south Mumbai hotel. His family too will not be coming and it is said that they will be out for three to four weeks.

As his chances of coming to city became thin, there were reports that he would talk to media through Skype from Mecca. However, even that was scrapped later in the day.

‘He has a busy schedule and it keeps changing. Doing Skype would be difficult,’ said Tanvir Shaikh, trustee of Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) of which Naik is president.

Other aides close to Naik said that he was supposed to go to three African countries to deliver lectures. Officials working for the 51-year-old preacher told dna that Naik’s itinerary was planned more than two months ago.

‘Dr. Naik left India a long time ago to perform Umrah. In April this year he was in Malaysia. Currently he is in Medina, following which he would be traveling to Mecca and then finally to Jeddah as part of Umrah. After Dr. Naik has performed the pilgrimage, he is scheduled to deliver lectures in three African countries and he will be return to his home country only after that. No investigating agencies have approached Dr Naik till now and if they do, we would certainly try our best to curtail the Africa tour and co-operate with security agencies,’ said a close aide of the preacher.

‘There was no response from Naik’s team on the ban of Naik’s channel - Peace TV - in Bangladesh. His speeches and interviews, that are being termed as ‘provocative’ while Home ministry officials, are being investigated along with IRF’s funding.

‘If time permits, God willing, in the next few days I will give replies to some of the major allegations on video and give it to the media as well as put it up on social media as well as other public platforms so that the original answers are also available if the media misutilises (sic) it,’ Naik said in a statement issued through his public relations personnel.

His statement ended by repeating that he did not support terrorism or violence in any form. Naik and his work has come in media and government agencies’ scanner after reports that one of the terrorists involved in Dhaka attacks was said to be his follower.

The reports were later withdrawn but the issue snowballed further when Ibrahim Yazdani, an Islamic State (IS) suspect arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) revealed during questioning that he too used to listen to Naik’s speeches.

An NIA official speaking to dna said that the agency is looking into reports of the preacher delivering alleged inflammatory speeches and action would be taken only if required.