Naik’s activities come under the lens after the July 2016 Dhaka attack. Sources told TOI on Thursday that Naik wrote to Interpol after NIA requested the international agency in May to issue an RCN against him, citing the terror and money laundering charges against him. In his submission, he is believed to have argued that the Indian agencies were unfairly targeting him because he was a Muslim. He claimed that all his speeches had only promoted peace and nowhere did they advocate terror or jihad. Meanwhile, NIA has intimated Interpol of the recent revocation of Naik’s Indian passport and requested it to pass on the information to all its member countries.
Interpol is said to have accordingly intimated all countries, including Saudi Arabia. Naik is believed to be in Malaysia at present.
In his plea to Interpol, Naik submitted that he had been delivering speeches on Islam for the past 25 years across several countries, where he was respected and welcomed. He alleged that Indian agencies, by banning his NGO Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) and preventing him from delivering speeches on Islam, was violating his freedom of expression. Naik also cited the “poor condition of Indian prisons” and “human rights violations” there to back his plea. He claimed he may be subjected to torture in Indian jails if, as a consequence of the red-corner notice, he is detained by any foreign law-enforcement agency and extradited to India.
Meanwhile, NIA has intimated Interpol of the recent revocation of Naik’s Indian passport and requested it to pass on the information to all its member countries. Interpol is said to have accordingly intimated all countries, including Saudi Arabia.
Naik is believed to be in Malaysia at present. It has also come to NIA’s notice that Naik had on March 4, 2016, established an Islamic Research Foundation International branch in Japan
at Gyotokuekimac, Ichikawa- Shi, Chiba-Kea(ToI)