Islamic Preacher MM Akbar, Known as Kerala’s Zakir Naik, Arrested on Way to Qatar

Kochi/New Delhi: M M Akbar, Islamic preacher and managing director of Peace International School, was arrested in Hyderabad on Sunday.

According to highly placed sources, Akbar had arrived in Hyderabad from Australia, and was scheduled to board a flight to Doha on Monday. However, he was held from Telangana’s capital before fleeing the country.

Police sources told News18 that they are looking into the details and procedure to take the controversial preacher to Kerala.

M M Akbar, also known as Kerala’s Zakir Naik, came to limelight earlier in January after Kerala government decided to shut down his school near Kochi for promoting enmity among different groups on the basis of religion.

It was the same school which recently hit the headlines after 21 people went missing from Kerala to reportedly join the ISIS in Afghanistan and Syria.

Among the missing, was Abdul Rasheed, who is suspected to be the ring leader of this group and was an employee of the Peace School. His wife Yasmin Ahmad, also missing, had earlier taught at the school.

Akbar is the managing director of Peace International School, which has 13 branches in different districts of Kerala. According to reports, a chapter of the textbook taught in class II of the school was leaked by parents and some others to the media, following which the state government initiated an investigation.

The probe also revealed that the school was not following textbooks of SCERT, NCERT or CBSE but using books which were out of syllabus and published by private companies.

The officers conducting the investigation said that textbooks, published by Navi Mumbai-based Burooj Realization, were distributed in Class II of all the branches of the school. The books allegedly propagated Islamic orthodoxy and conversion.

The investigation team had apprehended three people earlier who admitted that their aim was to radicalise children in the age group of 5-13 years.

After the arrest of Mohamed Vaid, 38, Sameed Ahammed Sheikh, 31, and Sahil Hameed Sayed, 28, Burooj Realization had withdrawn the textbooks distributed to schools across the country.

“They confessed that there were errors in the books and claimed that corrected books will be distributed from the next academic year,” an officer said.