After the Bangladesh police mentioned that one of the terrorists involved in the attack at Holey Artisan Cafe was heavily influenced by the exhortations of Mumbai-based Islamic preacher Dr Zakir Naik, fresh details have emerged about foreign funding to Naik's Dubai-based television channel Peace TV. The channel, owned by Naik and broadcast across the world in various languages, including Bangla, is the vehicle through which Naik propagates his brand of Salafi Islam to the world.
dna has accessed details and documents that show that donations were being raised in Britain to keep Naik's channels running. The funds were being raised through Islamic Research Foundation International, an overseas unit of Naik's foundation based in Birmingham in the West Midlands county of Britain. Between 2008 to 2015, the Islamic Research Foundation funded Peace TV by injecting almost 9 million Great British Pounds (GBP).
Most of the donations received by the foundation were spent only on running the channel propagating Naik's interpretation of the Quran. Although the channel was launched in 2006, the Birmingham-based foundation started contributing to Peace TV after its inception in 2008. The donations to Peace TV touched the million GBP mark in 2009, which was also the year in which Peace TV launched an Urdu language channel.
In 2011, when close to 4 million GBP had been infused into Peace TV, a Bangla language channel aimed at viewers in Bangladesh was launched. In fact, the year in which Peace TV Bangla was launched, the Islamic Research Foundation, that was funding the channel, paid 1.3 million GBP to the channel. This was the largest payment made to the channel by the foundation since its inception in Britain. Surprisingly, a year before the channel targeted at Bangladesh's Muslim population was launched, the foundation received its biggest donation totaling almost 1.4 million GBP.
"The Islamic Research Foundation and Peace TV are two separate entities. They are not connected in any way. I do not have information about what goes on in Britain. You should speak about it to Dr Zakir Naik." said Manzoor Shaikh, spokesperson of the Mumbai-based foundation.
It is unclear who were the individuals or organisations that were funding the Birmingham-based foundation, which in turn was using the money to fund Naik's TV channels. British authorities have not investigated the source of funds being received by the foundation. However, reports suggest that Peace TV came under the scanner of Office of Communications (Ofcom), Britain's broadcasting watchdog, for telecasting volatile content that advocated killing a non-Muslim for propagating against Islam. The channel was also banned from broadcasting in India in 2012.
In 2012, when the British regulator was probing the channel's allegedly malicious content, British authorities initiated action to wind up the operations of the foundation. However, a few months later in March, the action was reversed and the foundation was allowed to continue operations. From the time British authorities discontinued their actions till 2015, the foundation donated almost 5.5 million GBP to Peace TV. Documents show that the money paid to Peace TV was much more than the donations the foundation was receiving. During the same period the foundation received 4.5 million GBP as donations and was running losses to keep the channel running.
Though the channel was funded solely by the foundation, two other entities were being used to broadcast the channel in Britain and across the world. Naik was on the board of both these entities.
One of them was Birmingham-based Lord Production House, which had been in existence since 2006. Naik became associated with the company in 2008 along with other Mumbai-based individuals. Among them was Naik's relative Mohammad Naik and a consultant psychiatrist Mohammed Qureshi. Among all the people involved in running the foundation and the production house, only Qureshi was a British national.
British authorities had thrice attempted to put the lid on the activities of the company – once in 2010 and twice in 2012. However, on all occasions and as in the case of the Islamic Research Foundation, the action was discontinued. Lord Production House held the licence to broadcast Peace TV English.
The production house was in turn owned by another entity named Universal Broadcasting Corporation Limited (UBCL). Documents show that the Islamic Research Foundation donated close to 2 million GBP in 2013 and 2014 to UBCL. The Birmingham-based UBCL holds the broadcasting licence for Peace TV in Britain.
