 "Is the PFI a gateway to Islamic State and other terror outfits?")
News of the Popular Front of India (PFI) being raided across the country with around 100 activists arrested or detained has once again given ammunition to its critics who claim it is a gateway to other terror outfits. The PFI has claimed that is fighting for the rights of the marginalised. “The raids are taking place at the homes of national, state and local leaders of PFI. The state committee office is also being raided. We strongly protest the fascist regime’s move to use agencies to silence dissenting voices,” the PFI in its statement said. However, officials led by the National Investigation Agency paint an entirely different picture – claiming that the group is funding terror, organising training camps, and radicalising people to join banned outfits. Also read: Muslim organisation or terror outfit? What is the PFI and how has it grown in India? Let’s take a closer look: Links with SIMI While the PFI’s origins lie in the National Development Front (NDF), the organisation has come under fire for its links to the banned terror outfit Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). Though the PFI has taken objection to such a categorisation, a slew of its office-bearers and leadership including ex-PFI chairman and now vice-chairman EM Abdul Rahiman, Social Democratic Party of India president E Aboobacker, and PFI national executive member and professor P Koya were associated with SIMI before it was banned. Sources in the Intelligence Bureau told The Quint that PFI members have been holding classes on jihad, telling its cadre they would get ‘religious rewards in the afterlife’ for killing right-wing activists who oppose Islam. However, officials said has been described as an ‘extremist organisation’ and not a ‘terror outfit’. “They preach to their cadre to attack the right-wing organisations in the country. The attacks are either communal or political. However, unlike the Indian Mujahedeen and LeT, they have not taken up any large-scale terror attacks against a general civilian target. Regardless, they have been under constant surveillance for several years now,” an intelligence bureau officer deployed in Kerala, on condition of anonymity, told The Quint.
However, officials said has been described as an ‘extremist organisation’ and not a ‘terror outfit’.
PFI members joining Islamic State Intelligence agencies say around 40 to 50 individuals from Kannur district, mainly from the Valapattanam region, have joined the Islamic State in Syria, as per Indian Express. Police say they were activists of the PFI and that ‘militant elements’ broke away after the formation of the Social Democratic Party of India in 2009. Several families went to Syria, according to the police. [caption id=“attachment_9903821” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]
Representational image. News18[/caption] According to the Kerala Police, at least six PFI members from Kannur district – Abdul Ghayoom, Abdul Manaf, Shameer, Safwan, Suhail and his wife Rizwana – joined the Islamic State in 2017.
As per India Today, these persons managed to leave the country, possibly for Syria, on fake passports.
“Shameer and Manaf were PFI activists, but they cut all ties with us after they left for the Gulf,” a report in The Times of India quoted VK Noufal, Kannur district president of the PFI, as saying. In July, an NIA court sentenced three other men convicted in a case regarding recruitment for the Islamic State terrorist group, as per Indian Express. The police registered the case in 2017 after two men were arrested in Turkey trying to sneak into Syria. The convicted persons were part of the Kannur module of the Islamic State, police said. The key figure in the module is Shajahan Valluva Kandy, who had twice tried to go to Syria, but was sent back along with his wife and two children. Shajahan told the NIA he had joined the IS to establish Islamic Shariah law in the subcontinent. ‘Mission 2047’ In July, documents about the PFI’s ‘Mission 2047’ to make India an Islamic state were uncovered during a raid in which three persons including a retired police sub-inspector. were arrested As per News18, the PFI document stated that the group may be able to ‘convert India into an Islamic country’ if even 10 per cent of Indian Muslims rally behind it. The PFI document states, “We dream of 2047, where political power has returned to the Muslim community from whom it was unjustly taken away by the British Raj.”
Its added that Muslims ruled India for centuries despite being a minority. Muslims don’t need to be in the majority, the document further stated
PFI cadres and Muslim youths should work for the “deen” as Allah had ordained that rule of Islam be established in the world, the document further states. Assistant superintendent of police (ASP) Manish Kumar, who led the operation, quoted the document as saying that the PFI wants to “subjugate the coward Hindu community and bring the lost glory of Islamic rule back to India", as per the report. More details from the document could not be reported due to national security concerns. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Manavjeet Singh Dhillon said individuals arrested in the raid were providing training to the youth on terror activities. “During the raid, we have seized the flags of banned outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), pamphlets, documents of making the India Islamic state till 2047 and other sensitive documents were recovered from the place,” Dhillon said. Patna Police had registered FIR against 26 people and some of them were from Jharkhand, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu. In Bihar, some of the accused belong to Patna, Darbhanga and other places. The police officer said that the arrested accused including a retired sub-inspector of Jharkhand named Jalaluddin, former Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) member Athar Parvez and Arman Malik were arrested by Patna Police. They are facing the charges of providing training to youths on Islamic extremism and terror activities. Targeting professor, RSS Perhaps the most high-profile example of PFI targeting an individual came in 2010 when the right hand of TJ Joseph, professor of Newman College in Thodupuzha in Idukki district, was chopped off by persons affiliated with the group while he was returning home after attending a Sunday mass in 2010. [caption id=“attachment_11310701” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]
TJ Joseph’s right hand was chopped off by activists of the Popular Front of India in 2010. PTI[/caption] Police said the persons wanted Joseph killed for derogatory religious remarks in a question paper he set for B.Com semester examination in the Newman College.
In 2015, thirteen people from the Popular Front of India (PFI) were convicted in the case.
The group has also repeatedly targeted Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh workers. In May, police arrested a Popular Front of India (PFI) functionary knowns as Bava in connection the murder of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker in Kerala’s Palakkad. In September, PFI Palakkad district secretary of PFI, Aboobaker Siddik, was arrested for allegedly hatching a conspiracy to kill RSS leader S K Srinivasan in April. Siddik was also allegedly part of a group of PFI activists who had prepared the list of leaders of various political organisations including the BJP, CPI(M) and Youth League — the youth wing of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) — to be targeted in their retaliatory attacks, a police officer told PTI. As per The Quint, PFI members in Karnataka have been involved in the murders of four RSS workers in the state – two murders Mangaluru, and one each in Bengaluru and Mysuru.
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