NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday conducted a series of raids and searches across five states as part of its continued efforts to foil the banned Popular Front of India’s (PFI) conspiracy to disturb peace in the country.
A total of 14 locations in Kannur, Malappuram, Dakshin Kannada, Nashik, Kolhapur, Murshidabad and Katihar districts of Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Bihar were raided. Several incriminating digital devices as well as documents were seized during the raids.
The case against PFI was registered by NIA in Delhi in April 2022. Incriminating evidence was collected by the agency, leading to the arrest of several top PFI leaders, including over a dozen NEC members, following country-wide operations in September 2022.
The NIA conducted intensive investigations against the accused and filed a chargesheet against 19 of them in March 2023. PFI as an organisation was also named in the chargesheet. Subsequently, in April 2023, a supplementary chargesheet was filed against the PFI national coordinator of weapons training.
Investigations are continuing to unearth and expose the complete PFI conspiracy to indoctrinate and train susceptible youth to create mayhem in the country. The eventual aim of the conspiracy is to create an Islamic State by the time India completes a century of its independence.
The NIA has been working to unravel and thwart the attempts by 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. PFI has been conspiring to radicalise gullible youth and provide them weapons training in a bid to further its violent anti-India agenda by fighting against certain sections of the society, as per NIA investigations, an official said.
NIA suspects several mid-rung PFI agents to be operating as master trainers who have been conducting Arms Training Camps across various states of the country for training its highly radicalised PFI cadres in the use of weapons, iron rods, swords and knives.
On the basis of intelligence and investigative analysis and insights, it has been raiding multiple locations in various states over the past several months to identify and arrest these cadres and operatives.
Timeline on police action
April 2022
NIA registers a case against PFI
September 2022
Agency collects incriminating evidence and many top PFI leaders arrested
March 2023
A charge sheet was filed against 19 after an intensive probe. PFI named in change sheet
April 2023
A supplementary charge sheet filed