Media and policemen stand exterior the workplace of Popular Front of India (PFI) Islamic group, in New Delhi, September 28, 2022. File
| Photo Credit: REUTERS
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has analysed greater than 60 Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts linked to the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI), via which its functionaries and members had been allegedly spreading communal hatred and concentrating on the Indian authorities and higher judiciary.
The information associated to these social media accounts was downloaded or extracted within the presence of impartial witnesses. “A thorough analysis of the downloaded data revealed several inflammatory and communal speeches made by the accused persons/PFI cadre on their social media handles. Similarly, multiple posts/videos were found opprobrious of the higher judiciary and the Government of India,” alleges the company.
In the YouTube movies downloaded from the PFI’s official accounts, the accused individuals, who had been its nationwide government council (NEC) members, had been seen “addressing large gatherings of people and provoking them against the Indian government by wrongful interpretations of government policies to create hatred against the entire State machinery, High Courts and the Supreme Court… and instigating the crowd towards violence against the persons belonging to a particular religious or political group”.
Before being banned by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on September 27, 2022, the PFI had its footprint in additional than 20 States. On March 21, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Tribunal upheld the ban on PFI and its associates. The NIA has alleged that the outfit was growing a mass organisation on the pretext of a socio-political motion and supposed to float a militia and generate sources for waging conflict towards the Indian authorities to set up an “Islamic caliphate” as a replacement.
The company discovered that the cadre-based outfit had items on the floor stage and supervisory wings on the district, State and the nationwide stage. The PFI’s NEC was the supreme decision-making physique for which alternatives had been made by its nationwide common meeting having representatives from every State within the proportion of 1 consultant per 300 members.
“The ultimate and highly secretive objectives of the PFI and the means to achieve the same are enshrined in the document titled ‘India 2047: Towards Rule of Islam in India’, which was seized during the investigation in a case,” stated a senior company official.
As alleged by the NIA, the proposed levels to obtain the target concerned weapons coaching to the PFI cadre; selective use of violence to show power and terrorise opponents; foment communal and social disharmony; and infiltrate the police, military and the judiciary. The technique was to be executed by radicalising the youth, recruiting them and coaching those that “pledged their allegiance to the PFI by administration of oath of secrecy and loyalty” in using arms and weapons.
A success squad had been arrange to get rid of the targets recognized by the organisation. Its members had been often tasked to profile and mount surveillance on the targets. They had been activated solely on the directions of NEC members and different senior management of the PFI, it has been alleged.
The PFI members had been allegedly concerned in a collection of violent crimes. They embrace the chopping of Prof. T.J. Joseph’s proper hand in Muvattupuzha (Kerala) on July 4, 2010; homicide of Sashi Kumar on September 22, 2016, in Coimbatore; homicide of Rudresh in Bengaluru on October 16, 2016; Ramalingam’s killing in Thanjavur (Tamil Nadu) on February 5, 2019; murders of Sanjith on November 15, 2021, and Srinivasan on April 16, 2022, in Palakkad; and Praveen Nettaru on July 26, 2022, in Dakshina Kannada.
About its alleged hyperlinks with different proscribed organisations, the company has discovered that the PFI emerged within the aftermath of the ban on the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). “E. Abubacker, founding chairman of the PFI, was the SIMI’s former State president for Kerala. Abdul Rehman, the PFI’s national chairman in 2010, was the former national secretary of the SIMI,” it has alleged.
In 5 instances, the NIA discovered that a number of alleged lively PFI members had joined the Islamic State. It has additionally alleged that the outfit was instrumental in organising and funding protests on the problems of Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the National Register of Citizens.
