New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday asked banks to freeze accounts belonging to controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik and his organisation, Islamic Research Foundation (IRF).
Sources said all the banks, where Mr Naik and his organisation’s accounts are in operation, have been asked to immediately freeze those till further directions. The NIA registered a case against Mr Naik, the IRF and the foundation’s unknown office bearers under section 153-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony, besides various sections of anti-terror law, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Sources added the move to block his bank accounts was taken after the NIA claimed to have seized documents that showed ISIS recruit Abu Anas received Rs 80,000 from the IRF as scholarship in October 2015.
The NIA has also written to Union home ministry for banning the website run by the IRF and as well as suspending its online activities, which inlcude videos of Mr Naik’s speeches on social networking sites, they added.
The Home ministry will pass on the request to the information technology ministry for blocking the Universal Resource Locator (URL) of the website.
