Zakir Naik Was Running A Conversion Factory In India, Pushing People Towards Wahhabism, Terror: Report

Controversial television evangelist Zakir Naik was involved in converting people from economically deprived sections of society to Islam with the help of his aides and his organisation Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), reported Republic TV.

Citing from documents with the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the channel said that the converts were pushed towards Wahhabism, radicalised and later sent off to join terror outfits such as the Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Afghanistan. Documents seized by the NIA from an IRF volunteer had 78 affidavits belonging to people converted to Islam.

“The IRF and its members have been forcing and radicalising youth to convert to Islam and then joining proscribed terrorist organisations like ISIS and commit terrorist acts,” the documents obtained by the channel conclude.

The documents also discuss individual cases. In one case, an IRF volunteer Arshi Qureshi did not shy away from “openly disparaging other religions vis a vis Islam” and spread the belief that the entire world needed to be Islamicised.

Using information in these documents, the channel tried to track down the converts. Most of these people were found missing from their homes, the channel claimed, fuelling the theory that the converts were packed off by the IRF to war zones.

As per the channel’s report, the Islamic preacher was paid by sources in the Middle East for running a conversion factory in India.