Islamist Popular Front Of India ‘Involved In Terror Acts’, NIA Submits Report To Govt Recommending Ban

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has recommended banning the Kerala-based Muslim outfit Popular Front of India citing terror links and other activities, according to a report by The Indian Express.

The report said that the agency has submitted a report to the union home ministry saying the group was a fit case to be declared banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

Another report by The Times of India said that the NIA’s dossier on PFI has detailed four terror cases in which its cadres have been chargesheeted or convicted under UAPA.

PFI is a Islamist fundamentalist organisation in India that changed its name from National Development Front (NDF) in 2006.

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PFI had invited national attention after its involvement in the hand-chopping of a professor in Kerala in 2010 for allegedly insulting the prophet. The outfit has been recently in news in connection with the conversion and a marriage of a Hindu girl Akhila in Kerala. The Supreme Court had asked NIA to probe this case under the supervision of a retired SC judge. 

In a status report submitted before the Supreme Court, NIA had named Sainaba, a woman activist of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political arm of PFI, for her involvement  in Akhila’s conversion and in the case of conversion of another woman Athira Nambiar, The Hindu had reported on Monday.

The NIA status report in SC had also said that Akhila @ Hadiya’s husband Shefin Jahan has four criminal cases registered against him but all of them were of a “political nature” as he was an active member of SDPI, The Hindu reported.

Quoting ministry officials, the Express report says that NIA has told the government that the group has been involved in terror acts, including running terror camps and making bomb.

PFI’s national executive council member P Koya, however, denied terror links of his organization and said NIA had never approached them to know about their activities.

The agency has cited PFI’s alleged involvement in four cases to support its claim — chopping of a professor’s palm in Kerala’s Idukki district, organising a training camp in Kannur from where the NIA reportedly seized swords, country-made bombs and ingredients for making IEDs, murder of RSS leader Rudresh in Bengaluru and plans to carry out terror attacks in South India by involving the outfit Islamic State Al-Hindi, the report says.