Minister of state for home affairs Kiren Rijiju has hit out at the Congress over co-ntroversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s NGO Isla-mic Research Foundation (IRF) giving a donation of Rs 50 lakh to
Minister of state for home affairs Kiren Rijiju has hit out at the Congress over co-ntroversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s NGO Isla-mic Research Foundation (IRF) giving a donation of Rs 50 lakh to the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust, saying the party needs to introspect on the issue rather than accusing the governme-nt of leaking information.
Speaking on the sidelines of a function in the capital on Sunday, Mr Rijiju said thateven though the government was aware of the transaction it did not make the information public nor did it “play politics” over the issue.
“We knew about Zakir Naik’s Islamic Research Foundation donating Rs 50 lakh to Rajiv Gandhi Foundation or its related body more than a month back, but we did not want to play politics. So, we have now asked for more information,” the minister added. He further claimed that a section of the media had filed an RTI to Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and got the information.
The IRF had donated Rs 50 lakh to Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust which is an associate entity of Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, in 2011. However, the amount was returned to IRF by the Trust in July this year. Both the IRF and the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust were registered under the Foreign Contribution Regulations Act and such donation of foreign funds from one FCRA registered NGO to another is authorised and legally permitted.
The home ministry has also clarified that there was illegality in the donation. Mr Rijiju said there was no question of the government leaking the information or the documents.
“It was unfortunate that rather than introspecting about what Congress has done, they are just making unnecessary accusation that the government is leaking out documentation,” he said.
Subsequently, Mr Rijiju tweeted on the issue saying, “Every action of the government is not announced instantly. There are methods for getting to the bottom of the matter.” The Congress had accused the government of leaking this information.
