On Friday, December 9, several Twitter users shared screenshots of some Facebook posts from Police Constable Mushir Khan, posted in the Lalitpur area of Uttar Pradesh. In the Facebook screenshots that have now gone viral on social media, the officer shared multiple posts mocking Hindus and their faith, shared posts in favour of illegal religious conversions, and also in support of Indian fugitive extremist ‘preacher’ Dr Zakir Naik. The constable is said to be posted in the district’s women’s police station in Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh.
The screenshots of Mushir Khan’s hateful Facebook posts were first shared by Bajrang Muni Udasin, the Mahant of a temple in Sitapur. The Mahant shared 4 pictures. One was a screenshot of a snippet of a video of the Islamist preacher Zakir Naik that was posted by a Facebook group ‘Dr Zakir Naik Ke Chahne Walon Group’. The UP cop had shared this from his Facebook account named ‘Mushir Khan Mushir Khan’ on November 25.
“भारत सरकार द्वारा वांछित जाकिर नाईक का फैन है @Uppolice के @lalitpurpolice में पोस्टेड कांस्टेबल मुशीर खान”
— महंत बजरंग मुनि (@BabaBajrangMuni) December 9, 2022
जाकिर नाईक के चाहने वालों के ग्रुप का मेंबर भी है. शेयर करता है धर्मांतरण वाले कंटेंट.
रामायण की सीता @ChikhliaDipika को घोषित कर दिया इस्लाम में कनवर्ट. pic.twitter.com/bHDUh1pVs0
The name of the admin of this group ‘Dr Zakir Naik Ke Chahne Walon Group’ is some Aamir Khan. About 4 lakh 15 thousand members are connected with the group, one of them being the UP constable Mushir Khan.
Notably, in this Zakir Naik supporters group, numerous videos of the fugitive are frequently posted among many other radical Islamic religious topics. According to his Facebook profile, group administrator Aamir Khan is a native of Gopalganj, Bihar, although he presently resides in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. On the videos he shares, he regularly gets thousands of likes and comments. Constable Musheer and other group members frequently share Zakir Naik’s hateful speeches shared from this account.
Khan’s other posts that went viral were the ones that mocked Kalpana Chawla, the first woman of Indian origin to go to space. He had shared a post originally posted by some ‘NA News’, that said that the astronaut converted to Islam after encountering ‘Allah in space’.
In another post, Khan shared two pictures of Dipika Chikhlia Topiwala, the actress known for playing Devi Sita in Ramanand Sagar’s television series Ramayan. One was in the attire of Goddess Sita, which she donned in the serial, and a photoshopped one of her in a burqa. The constable implied that the actress had converted to Islam.
In his tweet, Mahant Bajrang Muni Udasin voiced his concern that Constable Mushir may be affiliated with a terrorist network. He stated that he will urge the NIA to look into the constable’s connections. The Lalitpur police responded to the Mahant’s tweet saying that they have started probing the issue and would take appropriate action on the same.
संबंधित को जांच कर आवश्यक कार्यवाही हेतु निर्देशित किया गया।
— LALITPUR POLICE (@lalitpurpolice) December 9, 2022
Notably, after the Uttar Pradesh constable was called out for sharing hateful and communally sensitive posts and the Lalitpur police’s response, Mushir Khan deleted his Facebook account.
Zakir Naik’s Islamist preachings and their violent consequences
Zakir Naik has been avoiding Indian authorities ever since his name started cropping up in terror-related cases. In 2016, terrorists involved in the Dhaka blast case admitted that they were influenced by the preacher’s speeches.
In 2019, Zakir was banned from giving speeches in Malaysia after he made racist comments against Hindus and Chinese Malaysians. He was interrogated for hours in connection to the same.
Zakir Naik is wanted in India in cases involving money laundering. The government of India had taken his channel, Peace TV, off the air for peddling hate propaganda.
