Action of PFI: In its fifth chargesheet this month against the Popular Front of India (PFI), the NIA filed charges against 19 people, including 12 National Executive Council (NEC) members of the banned outfit, for their alleged involvement in a conspiracy to wage war. An official said that the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate in the country.
With the filing of the charge sheet in the Delhi case on Saturday (March 18), the total number of accused charge-sheeted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in PFI cases across the country now stands at 105, a spokesperson of the federal agency said.
The PFI was formed in 2006 with the merger of the National Development Front (NDF) of Kerala and the Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD), with Oma Salam becoming its President, EM Abdul Rahman Vice President, VP Nazaruddin National Secretary, Anees Ahmed National General Secretary . Secretary, NEC, the top decision making body in the organization.
19 List of accused:
The spokesman said that the 19 accused, against whom the chargesheet has been filed under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, are Salam, Rahiman, Nazruddin, Ahmed, Afsar Pasha, E Abubakar, Professor P Koya. and Mohammed Ali Jinnah. ,
Abdul Wahid Sait, AS Ismail, Mohd Yusuf, Mohd Basheer, Shafeer KP, Jasir KP, Shahid Nasir, Waseem Ahmed, Mohd Shakif, Mohd Farooq ur Rehman and Yasser Arafat alias “Yasir Hasan” are some of the other key posts. were holders. In the charge sheet, the officer said. He was arrested in September last year (2022) following a nationwide crackdown at 39 locations, including PFI offices across the country, after the group was banned by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
“The case under investigation since April 2022 revealed that a criminal conspiracy was hatched by the PFI to divide the country on communal lines. It is also learned that the ultimate objective of the conspiracy was to overthrow the existing system of secularism. ” and democratic rule in India and replace it with an Islamic Caliphate,” the spokesperson said.
NIA Investigation:
The NIA said that its investigation has also unearthed traces of funding by the PFI to its terror operatives and weapon trainers across the country through cash and regular bank transfers in the guise of payment of salaries.
“All these PFI trainers have been arrested in cases registered by NIA or various state police forces. NIA has frozen 37 bank accounts of PFI organization as well as 40 bank accounts of 19 persons associated with PFI. Organization curtailing funding activities,” the spokesperson said.
The action was taken on these bank accounts across the country, including Guwahati (Assam), Sundipur (West Bengal), Imphal (Manipur), Kozhikode (Kerala), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), New Delhi, Jaipur (Rajasthan), the official said. Bengaluru (Karnataka), Hyderabad (Telangana) and Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh).
“Investigation has revealed that the PFI, operating under the guise of building a mass organization and a socio-political movement, was actually putting together a highly motivated, trained and clandestine elite within a larger organization So that it can achieve its destructive and violent long-term objective of establishing Islamic rule by 2047,” the spokesperson said.
The agency said that the PFI had devised a well-planned strategy to wage an armed struggle by radicalizing and recruiting those who had already pledged their allegiance to the organization and its ideology and tactics through an oath of secrecy and loyalty. “These highly radicalized people were being trained in the use of arms and weapons at various arms training camps run by PFI across the country with the aim of creating a well-trained PFI army/militia,” the spokesperson said.
“The recovery of PFI’s vision document seized in various cases by NIA clearly proves the conspiracy of the central leadership to recruit, arms train and keep the cadre ready for armed insurgency in the future year 2047,” the spokesperson said. The NIA said the probe has also unearthed the PFI’s mechanism of collecting details of leaders of organizations belonging to a particular community and of those who pass on their ideas to kill through its service teams or hit squads. do not subscribe to.
“Since the organisation’s formation in 2006, PFI cadres have been involved in a series of assassinations and violent attacks in the country, including on leaders of organizations at variance with the PFI over religious views and beliefs,” the agency said.
The spokesman said that the investigation also revealed that PFI was raising funds from India and abroad for carrying out violent and terrorist activities in different parts of India including Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Bihar, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh or Was collecting money. Pradesh and Delhi.
“The office bearers, leaders, cadre and members of PFI were also involved in radicalising and recruiting Muslim youth to join terrorist organizations like Islamic State,” the official said. The NIA had registered the case on the basis of credible inputs in February 2021 in view of the arrest of two youths by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).
The spokesman said that Anshad Badruddin and Firoz Khan were arrested while hatching a conspiracy to carry out bomb blasts on the occasion of Basant Panchami, with an aim to spread terror among a particular religious community and the public at large.
Apart from arms and ammunition, the UP ATS seized from Badruddin, an active PFI trainer and operative since 2010, a handwritten-text diary in Malayalam containing coded instructions and guidelines for carrying out riots, strategy of attacks during riots , included the routes to be followed. By local area leaders of PFI, reconnaissance and how and where to detonate the bomb. The officer said that funded by the PFI leadership, Badruddin was traveling to various states to recruit people into the PFI and impart arms training in the guise of physical education classes.
“Investigation has revealed that Badruddin, along with another PFI cadre Masood Ahmed, was planning to carry out terrorist activities. He had received around Rs 4 lakh from various PFI bank accounts for this purpose. Ahmed, who was arrested in October Was arrested in 2020. UP police also got money from PFI.
Others who received similar funds from PFI for terrorist activities in the country were Mohammad Abdul Ahad, who was chargesheeted in Hyderabad in December 2022 and is still absconding, Mohammad Irfan, chargesheeted in Hyderabad in December 2022 and Abdul Khadar Puttur, arrested in September 2022 in Bengaluru.
(With PTI inputs)
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