Will not leave Kingdom till year-end: Zakir Naik

RIYADH: A popular Indian preacher, Dr. Zakir Naik, who is currently visiting Kingdom, said that he would extend his stay in the Kingdom and would not return to India before the end of the year.
Earlier, he had announced that he would extend his stay for two or three weeks after reports coming from Bangladesh suggested that he spreads extremist ideology and encourages terrorism.
While addressing Indian media through Skype on Friday, Naik said that he would not return to India this year. He rejected perceptions that his speeches were a source of inspiration for one of the perpetrators of the killings in a Dhaka restaurant, in which more than 20 people died, nine of them Italians, and seven were Japanese and Americans.
Naik said that so far, no government agencies have contacted him to seek an explanation on the issue. He said he was completely ready to cooperate with the government of India’s investigation. He expressed his condemnation of the terrorist attacks saying that he was a “messenger of peace.” The New Indian Express newspaper said that so far, he has condemned the terrorist attacks in Nice, France where 90 people died at the hands of a truck driver. The Indian preacher claims that nobody can prove that at any time he supported the killings of innocents.
Naik’s decision came after an extremist Hindu leader Sadhvi Prachi announced a reward of 5 million India rupees (SR279,500) as reward to those who would cut off the head of the Indian preacher in the Kingdom and hang his head on a tree.
Soon after that, Shiite organization Al-Husseini Tigers also announced that it would pay a sum of 15 million India rupees (SR838,500) to the person who would bring Naik’s head.
The Daily Star, a Bangladeshi newspaper, published a report claiming that the programs broadcasted by Naik were the reason behind inciting one of the extremist organizations in Dhaka to stage attacks which resulted in 20 deaths in Bangladesh last week.
Soon after the report appeared, Naik said that he would take judicial action against the newspaper, which has caused this crisis. Later the newspaper published a statement saying that the India preacher did not incite anybody to any terrorist act.