The Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, said on Tuesday that India will bring up Zakir Naik’s presence at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar and suggest a decisive action over the issue.
Puri’s remark came as Zakir Naik has been invited to Qatar, where he is scheduled to conduct religious talks throughout the FIFA World Cup tournament.
“I’m sure India took it up and will take it up. But the point is he’s a Malaysian national, you invite him somewhere, whether they knew, I’ve got no knowledge of that,” the Union minister said in a statement.
Savio Rodrigues, a BJP spokesperson, on Tuesday urged the government, the Indian Football Association, and Indians visiting the host country to boycott FIFA in response to Qatar’s controversial invitation of Islamic preacher Zakir Naik to the FIFA World Cup.
Rodrigues claimed in a statement that giving Naik a platform at a time when the globe is fighting terrorism is equivalent to letting a “terror sympathiser” “spread hate.”
“The FIFA World Cup is a global event. People from all over the world come to witness this spectacular sport, and millions more watch it on TV and the Internet. Giving a platform to Zakir Naik, at a time when the world is fighting global terrorism, is to give a platform to a terrorist to spread his radicalism and hate,” he said.
In India, Zakir Naik is accused of making hateful statements and money laundering. The Naik-founded Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) was designated an unlawful association and outlawed for five years by the Home Ministry in March of this year.
According to the MHA statement, Zakir Naik has been endorsing known terrorists, making his talks unacceptable.
According to the MHA notification, Zakir Naik continues to travel to Gulf countries to raise money, all of which is used solely for radicalising people, particularly Muslim youth. This evidence was presented to the tribunal by the Solicitor General.
In 2016, just before the National Investigation Agency opened an investigation into him, Naik fled to Malaysia.
Intriguingly, the FIFA World Cup 2022 will mark the first occasion that the competition has been held in the final quarter of a calendar year. According to reports, the tournament’s usual months of June and July were not chosen because of the severe weather in Qatar during those months.
32 teams from five confederations are participating in the competition in Qatar. There could be 64 matches played over the course of 29 days.
The participating nations are: the host nation Qatar; Ecuador; Senegal; the Netherlands; England; Iran; the USA; Wales; Argentina; Saudi Arabia; Mexico; Poland; France; Australia; Denmark; Tunisia; Spain; Costa Rica; Germany; Japan; Belgium; Canada; Morocco; and Croatia; as well as Brazil; Serbia; Switzerland; Cameroon; Portugal; Ghana; Uruguay; and South Korea.