3 more staff of Zakir Naik’s institute under scanner of Mumbai police

MUMBAI: Three more employees of controversial Islamic Preacher Zakir Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) are under the scanner for their terror connections, said Mumbai police officials. Mumbai police sources told ET that they are investigating the links of three more employees of the IRF who have had connections with terror suspects arrested by the police in the past. The names of the three employees are not being divulged.

Moreover, the Mumbai police is now compiling a list of all the former employees of the IRF to check whether they are members of any terror group. The move comes a day after the Maharashtra ATS along with the Kerala police picked up Arshad Qureshi who allegedly belongs to the IRF.

Qureshi was arrested as he was named as an accussed by the Kerala police in a complaint filed by the family of a girl that Qureshi had ‘forcibly’ converted Merin alias Mariyam to Islam and forced her to join the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Zakir Naik’s lawyer Mumbai Solkar, however, said Qureshi was not a member of the IRF. “He was just a guest relation officer in the IRF, he didn’t hold any post and there is no membership of of the IRF, so it would be wrong to say that he belongs to the IRF,” said Solkar.