SP leader Abu Azmi takes over school run by controversial preacher Zakir Naik's IRF

Samajwadi Party leader Abu Asim Azmi has come to the rescue of a school in Mazgaon, Mumbai whose future was uncertain on account of being run by controversial televangelist​ Zakir Naik's Islamic Research Foundation (IRF). 

The Islamic International School (IIS) will now be renamed as Avicenna International School and be run by his Niyaz Minority, Education and Welfare trust. Azmi told Mumbai Mirror that the school's staff will remain the same. "We do not wish to disturb the academic year of any student. Even the syllabus will remain the same but with little changes."

The school has around 185 students and conducts classes from nursery to Std X.  

In November last year, the Centre banned the IRF under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for five years. Naik has been accused of allegedly making hate speeches aimed at other faiths and indulging in the propagation of terror.

The NIA then sealed the bank accounts of the school run by Naik's IRF. Azmi had said that parents, children and the teaching staff were under mental stress because of this. 

A special tribunal, headed by Justice Sangeeta Dhingra of the Delhi High Court, has last week upheld the government's decision to ban Zakir Naik's NGO Islamic Research Foundation. The presiding officer of the tribunal found that IRF was involved in activities threatening sovereignty, unity, integrity and security of India.