Govt of India finally issues an order to immediately ban the Popular Front of India

GG News Bureau

New Delhi, 28^th Sept. For many years, PFI and its fronts have been pursuing a covert agenda to radicalise a particular sector of society in an effort to undermine the idea of democracy and exhibit blatant disrespect for the nation’s constitutional system. PFI was operating under the guise of a socioeconomic, educational, and political organisation.

Following a nationwide crackdown on the 16-year-old PFI, which included the arrest of over a hundred of its members and the seizure of several dozen properties, the Central government took this action.

The Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India has decided to immediately ban the Islamic organization Popular Front of India (PFI) and any associated or affiliated fronts for a period of five years (UAPA), under subsection (1) of section 3 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967.

According to a notification from the Union Home Ministry, the PFI and its affiliates and associates have engaged in violent terrorist activities with the aim of sowing terror across the nation. These organizations include the Rehab India Foundation, Campus Front of India, All India Imams Council, National Confederation of Human Rights Organization, National Women’s Front, Junior Front, Empower India Foundation, and Rehab Foundation, Kerala.

The government is of the opinion that the PFI and related fronts will use this opportunity to continue their subversive activities, disrupting public order and jeopardising the country’s constitutional order, according to the statement.

The fact that PFI and its affiliated organizations are present in more than 17 states across the nation is noteworthy. Over 1,300 criminal cases against PFI cadres and its front organizations have been filed by the police and the NIA in various states. Some of these cases were also reported under the IPC’s heinous sections such as the Explosive Substances Act, the Arms Act, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and UAPA.

Projects to raise money and counter radicalization

Foreign Angles The fund-raising and radicalization aspects of the PFI have foreign angles, like most evil anti-India plots, and the NIA and other agencies are focusing their investigations on nations like Oman, the UAE, and Qatar.

According to sources, while real estate investors in Abu Dhabi are said to have generously donated to PFI, in some nations like Saudi Arabia, PFI members connect with Indian Muslims under the guise of ‘helping them’ with logistics and other assistance.

However, the main objective is typically to “radicalise” Indian Muslims using edited videos and pictures.

The PFI leaders have kept the funds and their “sources” a secret from official agencies.

The funds have frequently been used to incite anti-BJP and anti-Modi government protests across the nation. It was allegedly done to raise money and fine-tune the network using agents in other Gulf nations.

The Hawala method is allegedly used to send large sums of money to India. According to the sources, PFI members were using NRIs’ accounts to send money from Gulf nations. The member would transfer the money to another account after receiving it, then withdraw it.

The so-called annual membership, subscription fees, and donations support the Kuwait Indian Social Forum. It asserts that the main goal of all of these funds is to ‘aid’ the cause of Muslims. The group uses footage of anti-Muslim violence and incidents like the 1992 destruction of the Babri structure as part of its “radicalization project.”

Another significant networking-based organization active in Qatar’s Malayali community is The Cultural Forum.

PFI and SIMI connections

The notification unmistakably showed a connection between PFI and the outlawed Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). It was further stated that Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), another outlawed organization, is connected to PFI. PFI has been linked to a number of international terrorist organizations, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Cases that sparked the call to outlaw PFI

The investigation revealed that PFI was involved in several cases, including the amputation of a college professor’s limb and the murders of several people, including one of the most recent ones involving a Hindu activist named Praveen Nettaru in Bellare town, district of Dakshina Kannada in Karnataka.

Ten suspects in all were detained in connection with the case, and they were all PFI members. According to the local police investigation, PFI and members of the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), PFI’s political front, planned the murder.

Sanjith, an RSS employee who was murdered in Kerala on November 15, 2021, is one of the other cases. Assaulting its Dawah activities in Tamil Nadu, PFI cadres killed Hindu leader V Ramalingam in 2019. Other cases involved the murders of Nandu (2021), Abhimanyu (2018), Bibin (2017), Sharath (2017), R Rudresh (2016), Praveen Poojari (2016), and Sasi Kumar (2016). (Tamil Nadu, 2016).

Notably, these actions instil terror and fear in people who belong to other religious communities.

In June 2021, authorities also discovered explosives and jihadi literature while conducting their investigations in the Padam forest area (district Kollam). The forest was being used by the PFI as a military training ground. An arms training facility in Narath was raided by Kerala Police in April 2013 and weapons and explosives were found there (district Kannur). In the case, 41 PFI cadres were found guilty in 2016.

On July 4, a case was filed against Abdul Khader, a physical education teacher for PFI who had trained more than 200 PFI cadre members at his martial arts school in Nizamabad. Police also arrested 26 additional people.

The accused admitted during questioning that the PFI would consist of Muslim youth, particularly from the lower or middle classes. They received training that included the use of swords and nun-chucks as well as anti-Hindutva ideology indoctrination.

The GoI notification claims, that these illicit funds were employed to fund “various criminal, unlawful, and terrorist activities in India.”

It is noteworthy that over 100 PFI accounts were found to be out of sync with the account holders’ financial profiles after an investigation revealed them. As a result, the Income Tax department revoked PFI’s registration status under sections 12A and 12AA of the IT Act.

The PFI ban is in high demand

The notification noted that Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka state governments had all recommended against PFI. The document also stated that the “Central Government is of the opinion that if there is not an immediate curb or control of unlawful activities of the PFI and its associates or affiliates or fronts, the PFI and its associates or affiliates or fronts, will use this opportunity to cause public disturbance, undermine the constitution of India, encourage and enforce a terror-based regime, propagate anti-national sentiments, radicalise particular sections of society, and aggravate existing activities.”

The decision by the central government to outlaw the Popular Front of India (PFI) and designate it as an “unlawful organisation” in accordance with the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was also welcomed by the All India Bar Association (AIBA) (UAPA).

In a statement, the AIBA urged the government to completely dissolve the PFI network and put an end to its efforts to re-emerge under a different name. In order to ensure national unity and integration, the bar association thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for conducting yet another “surgical strike” by outlawing the PFI.