The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday raided 14 locations across five States in connection with the ongoing probe into the activities of the banned outfit, Popular Front of India (PFI).
The raids were carried out in Kannur and Malappuram (Kerala); Dakshin Kannada (Karnataka); Nashik and Kolhapur (Maharashtra); Murshidabad (West Bengal); and Katihar (Bihar).
“Several incriminating digital devices as well as documents were seized during the raids aimed at unearthing the banned outfit’s conspiracy to disturb peace and communal harmony of India,” said the NIA.
The NIA has been working to “unravel and thwart the attempts by the PFI and its top leadership to create an armed cadre and raise a PFI army for establishing an Islamic Caliphate in India by the year 2047 through acts of terror, violence and sabotage”.
Weapons training
According to the agency, the PFI has been conspiring to radicalise gullible youth and provide them weapons training in a bid to further its violent anti-India agenda. It suspects that several mid-rung PFI agents are operating as master trainers who have been conducting arms training camps across various States for its highly radicalised cadre.
Acting on intelligence inputs and its findings, the agency has been raiding multiple locations in various States over the past several months to identify and arrest the PFI operatives.
The instant case was registered by the NIA in April 2022. “Incriminating evidence was collected by the agency, leading to the arrest of several top PFI leaders, including over a dozen National Executive Council members, following country-wide operations during September 2022,” said the agency.
In the same case, the NIA had filed a charge sheet against 19 accused persons in March 2023. The PFI as an organisation was also named. Subsequently, in April this year, a supplementary charge sheet was filed against the PFI national coordinator of weapons training.
