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Red-faced home ministry suspends four officials for renewing license of Zakir Naik's NGO

Naik and his NGO are currently being probed for their alleged role in inspiring ISIS motivated youth, forced conversions, spreading communal hatred.

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Red-faced home ministry suspends four officials for renewing license of Zakir Naik's NGO
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Rendered red-faced for renewing foreign contribution regulation act (FCRA) licence of Salafi televangelist Zakir Naik’s NGO Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), the union home ministry has suspended four officials of the foreigners division, including a joint secretary.

“The action against officials was due to their negligence in clearing the renewal while a case is still pending. We had made the process of FCRA renewal online," Minister of State for home Kiren Rijiju said.

The ministry has also cancelled FCRA extension of IRF pending inquiry. The FCRA licence to Naik's NGO had expired on December 31, 2015.

Naik and his NGO are currently being probed by both Maharashtra government and the union home ministry for their alleged role in inspiring ISIS motivated youth, forced conversions, spreading communal hatred and suspected violations of the FCRA rules.

Besides, auditing IRF's accounts books to know the sources of donations and where they were spent, the agencies are also probing Naik's speech videos to find if the televangelist was in any way promoting terrorism.

According to sources, the FCRA licence of IRF was renewed by the foreigners division in the usual course when it came up for renewal on August 19 on their website.

The officials in question, apparently, failed to pick up the name IRF and after seeing that everything was in order and as per the rules renewed its FCRA licence for next five years.

A senior official speaking on anonymity said that the goof up was not big but for the media blitz against Naik and IRF as the probe against the two was still going and the ministry reserved the right to revoke the licence if any violations were found later.

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