Crackdown on PFI: NIA, ED raid offices across states

Over 100 functionaries of Popular Front of India, including 20 from Karnataka, were arrested on Thursday following a multi-agency operation headed by National Investigation Agency (NIA) spread across 15 states for allegedly supporting terrorist activities in the country.

At least 106 functionaries were picked by the NIA, ED and state police in what officials described as the "largest-ever investigation process till date". NIA alone arrested 45 PFI functionaries.

Besides 20 people arrested from Karnataka, 22 were apprehended from Kerala followed by Maharashtra (20), Tamil Nadu (10), Assam (9), Uttar Pradesh (8), Andhra Pradesh (5), Madhya Pradesh (4), Puducherry and Delhi (3 each) and Rajasthan (2).

Searches were conducted at 93 locations spread across 15 states -- Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, UP, Delhi, Assam, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, West Bengal, Bihar and Manipur. Investigators recovered digital devices, documents and cash during the searches that began at 3:30 am.

Forty-six people have been convicted in PFI-related cases since 2010-11 and 355 accused have already been chargesheeted. Around 300 NIA officers were involved in the search operation.

Protesting against the raids, the Popular Front announced a state-wide hartal in Kerala on Friday. It also staged protests across the state on Thursday.

NIA officials claimed that they registered FIRs in several states after the agency received inputs and gathered evidence that PFI leaders and workers were involved in terror funding, organising training camps, and radicalising people to join proscribed organisations.

PFI all India head OMA Salam, Vice President P Koya, General Secretary Aboobacker, PFI Delhi-Haryana Zonal incharge Maulana Waris and PFI Delhi president Parvez Ahmed as well as senior functionaries Mohammed Basheer and Nasaruddin Elamaram were among those arrested.

The PFI, formed in Kerala in 2006 and headquartered in Delhi, said in a statement, "the raids are taking place at the homes of national, state and local leaders of PFI. The state committee office is also being raided. We strongly protest the fascist regime's move to use agencies to silence dissenting voices."

Home Minister Amit Shah was briefed about the searches by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla and NIA Director General Dinkar Gupta. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval was also present at the meeting.

On September 18, the NIA had conducted raids at 38 locations in Telangana and two locations in Andhra Pradesh in connection with a case registered against PFI functionaries alleging that they were "organising camps for imparting training to commit terrorist acts and to promote enmity between different groups on the basis of religion".

The PFI, which is accused by law enforcement agencies of promoting radical Islam, is also under the ED scanner for money laundering charges in connection with "fuelling" protests against Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the 2020 Delhi riots, alleged conspiracy in Hathras (a district in Uttar Pradesh) over alleged gang-rape and death of a Dalit woman among others.

In February last year, the ED filed its first charge sheet against PFI and its student-wing Campus Front of India (CFI), claiming its members wanted to "incite communal riots and spread terror" in the aftermath of the Hathras gang rape case of 2020. The second charge sheet filed this year claimed that a hotel based in the UAE "served" as a money laundering front for the outfit.

The NIA had in 2017 sought a ban on the PFI alleging that it was involved in extremist activities detrimental to national security. It also accused the outfit of imposing strict religious orthodoxy among Muslims.