Pune:Bangladesh is rolling out the red carpet for controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, after the interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, reportedly green-lit a nearly month-long visit of the Indian orator to Bangladesh.
The Yunus government has approved Indian fugitive Zakir Naik’s three-week visit to Bangladesh from November 28 till December 20.
During his trip, Naik will travel across Bangladesh and deliver a series of sermons. This tour comes a little over a year earlier, after he went on a month-long state visit to Pakistan.
Naik, a proponent of the radical Salafi school in Sunni Islam, is wanted in India on money laundering and hate speech charges.
Criticizing Bangladesh’s move, Harmony Foundation said this same preacher of hate who was once banned by Sheikh Hasina’s administration is now being given a full red-carpet tour, which is a blow to all who stand for peace.
“Bangladesh’s decision to welcome the fugitive Zakir Naik with full honors, a man whose words have bred terror and turned young hearts into weapons, is not a visit but an invitation to darkness,” said Dr Abraham Mathai, founder chairman of Harmony Foundation, a Mumbai-based NGO, in a statement.
Dr Mathai had warned in February 2025 that if this path of rage continued, Bangladesh would one day roll out the red carpet for Zakir Naik and today that warning stands fulfilled not as prophecy, but as tragedy.
“The world knows Zakir Naik’s speeches are filled with radicalism that spread fundamental, and violent ideas among people, especially the youth. The world witnessed the fruits of his poison during the 2016 Holey Artisan Bakery attack in Dhaka, where 29 innocent people were brutally murdered by young men reportedly influenced by Zakir Naik’s extremist sermons,” Dr Mathai said.
He said those attackers did not act alone in their hearts; they were shaped by a message that turned faith into a weapon. And now, nine years later, the same man is being celebrated and will be welcomed in the nation.
“In the shadow of the Holey Artisan Bakery attack, where radical militants fueled by Zakir Naik’s toxic sermons killed innocent people, Faraaz Ayaaz Hossain emerged as a beacon of humanity’s unbreakable light. Bound by love that rose above faith, Faraaz sacrificed his life, refusing to abandon his Indian friends,” Dr Mathai said.
While the world honors his sacrifice as a symbol of selflessness, Bangladesh’s red-carpet welcome to Zakir Naik, a preacher with violent Islamic ideas and a venomous anti-India stance, is a tragic contradiction and a denial of everything Faraaz sacrificed his life for, he noted.
“It is not just a moral failure but a blow to humanity itself,” Dr. Mathai pointed out.
Dr. Mathai, also the former-vice chairman of Maharashtra State Minorities Commission, said that under Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh stood firm against him. His speeches were blocked and his influence curbed by a government that understood the dangers of extremism.
But today, the nation is changing. “Temples are being burned, minorities are attacked, and the ideals of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father who dreamed of a Bangladesh built on unity and peace, are being forgotten,” Dr. Mathai said.
In this climate, welcoming Zakir Naik with open arms is not just a political decision but a betrayal to all who stand for harmony in the nation, he said.
Dr Mathai has urged the international community to continue strongly condemning Bangladesh’s actions and to stand united for peace and tolerance.
He said it is deeply troubling that a Nobel Peace laureate like Muhammad Yunus is now presiding over a government that has opened its doors to voices of violence and division.
By allowing Zakir Naik a platform, Bangladesh is abandoning the path of harmony and betraying the very ideals it once upheld, Dr Mathai said.
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