The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has told a court that the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) had established various wings to eliminate their targets and also used its highly trained cadres to carry out verdicts of Darul Qaza, the PFI’s own ‘court of justice’.
The NIA chargesheet submitted at the special court in Kochi on Friday is primarily related to the agency’s raids on PFI members in Kerala and other states in September last year.
Following the raids, the Union Home Ministry imposed a ban on PFI and its associate organisations, including the Rehab India Foundation (RIF) and Campus Front of India, for five years under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). The NIA also filed a chargesheet in Tamil Nadu in connection with last year’s raids.
“The chargesheets filed in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the two states where the PFI is most active, relate to separate criminal conspiracies hatched by PFI … radicalisation of impressionable Muslim youth, training them in handling weapons, raising of funds for carrying out acts of terror and violence with ultimate objective of establishing Islamic rule in India by 2047,” an NIA statement said.
While the chargesheet filed in Chennai has named 10 PFI members, including the group’s Tamil Nadu vice president Khalid Mohammed, as accused, the one filed in Kochi has arraigned 58 members of the banned outfit. The accused have been charged under the UAPA and the Arms Act besides Sections of the IPC.
The Kerala chargesheet includes the PFI’s Kerala general secretary Abdul Sathar, state executive member Yahiya Thangal, Ernakulam zonal secretary SHihas M H and P K Usman, the state general secretary of the PFI’s political wing, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).
The NIA had connected the Kerala raids case with that of the murder of RSS worker A Sreenivasan, who was allegedly hacked to death by PFI members last year, saying investigations had found many of the PFI members were accused in both cases.
The NIA chargesheet said investigations revealed that the PFI had established wings such as “reporters wing, physical and arms training wing, besides service teams” and had been using its campuses for arms training to cadres “under the guise of physical education and yoga”.
It said the PFI used the so-called reporters wing and service teams to target rivals. “Whenever required, PFI pressed into service its loyal and highly trained cadres of service teams as executioners of the orders pronounced by the parallel courts,” the chargesheet said.
It added that the agency attached 17 properties, which were identified as proceeds of crime, and put a freeze on 18 bank accounts of the accused PFI members during the probe in Kerala.
