The Ministry of Home Affairs has extended for another five years the ban on the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), the organisation founded by the preacher Zakir Naik. The extension was announced on Friday, 13 November, one day before the existing ban was due to lapse on 14 November. The ban has been imposed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, commonly known as the UAPA.
The IRF was founded in 1991 in Mumbai by Zakir Naik, who serves as its founder and president. Naik has since left India and obtained permanent residency in Malaysia, where he continues to live outside the reach of Indian authorities. The organisation was first declared unlawful on 17 November 2016. That declaration was extended on 15 November 2021, and the tribunal constituted under the Act confirmed the declarations in 2017 and again in 2022. The current extension therefore marks the continuation of a ban that has been reviewed and upheld at each stage of the statutory process.
In its notification, the government said that Naik and the IRF were promoting religious enmity and hatred. Authorities cited speeches by Naik as objectionable and subversive, and alleged that he had inspired some youths towards terrorist acts. According to the government, these speeches reached millions of people through satellite television, the internet, print media and social media platforms, which extended their reach well beyond the organisation's own followers.
The government has argued that the IRF poses a threat to communal harmony and to national security. Its stated concerns include alleged support for militancy and secessionist aims. The notification also said that absconding activists could regroup and reorganise the organisation if it were left unchecked. This risk of reorganisation was cited as a central reason for keeping the ban in force, rather than allowing it to lapse.
The UAPA allows the Centre to declare an association unlawful and, once declared, bars its activities and related conduct. The five-year extension means the restrictions on the IRF will remain in effect until the next review. The notification has been presented as a continuation of existing measures rather than a new action, and it rests on the government's own assessment of the organisation's activities and of Naik's speeches over the preceding years.
The article on which this report is based does not include an independent verification of those allegations, and it does not present any independent assessment of the speeches or of the alleged links to terrorist acts. It also does not report any response from Naik or from the IRF to the extension of the ban. Readers should therefore treat the government's characterisations as the official position as stated in the notification, not as findings that have been separately tested.