NEW DELHI: From running a well-established set-up with skilled squads comprising highly trained cadres comprising of ‘service teams’, to running courts called ‘Dar-ul-Qaza’ to pronounce orders on punishments and executions, the Popular Front of India (PFI) made elaborate plans on how to wage a war on the State to establish an Islamic Caliphate in the country, as per the NIA.
Officials in the NIA said that investigations into 5 cases, in which chargesheets have already been filed with 105 accused named, revealed that that to achieve these objectives, the PFI had established various wings and units, such as ‘Reporters Wing’, ‘Physical and Arms Training Wing’ and ‘Service Teams’, which were imparted specific trainings and inducted for specific missions.
“The PFI was using its various campuses, facilities and infrastructure to impart arms training to selected cadres in the guise of physical education, yoga training,” NIA sources said, adding that in April, the agency had sealed off the first two stories of a school in Pune which was being used as a combat and arms training unit.
They also established a ‘Reporters Wing’ and ‘Service Teams or Hit Teams’ to eliminate their ‘targets’. Whenever required, the PFI pressed its loyal and highly trained cadres into service to execute orders pronounced by their parallel courts, the NIA said in its chargesheet.
NIA’s investigations in the case have also exposed a trail of funding by PFI to its terror operatives and weapons trainers across the country, both in cash and through regular bank transfers, in the guise of payment of salaries.
In several chargesheet filed in a special court in March, the NIA said, “Investigations have revealed that the PFI, acting under the cover of building a mass organisation and a socio-political movement, was actually putting together a highly motivated, trained and secretive elite force within the larger organisation, to achieve its pernicious and violent long-term objectives of establishment of Islamic rule in India by 2047.”
It may sound bizarre but the questioning of a PFI member actually revealed that in ‘Tharbiyath sessions’ organised by the senior members, it was suggested that in case of any disturbance at the north western frontiers, the Indian Army would be busy in the north, and with PFI’s training they could capture the south and move towards the north. “This indicates PFI’s intention of waging war against India and to overthrow the democratically established government,” the chargesheet by the NIA stated.
Officials in the NIA said that this has been the primary objective of all PFI modules operating in at least 15 states across the country. In one of the recent chargesheets filed at a Rouse Avenue court, the NIA submitted that PFI was trapping Muslim youth who had already pledged their allegiance to the outfit and its ideology and tactics through administration of an oath of secrecy and loyalty.
“These highly radicalised men were trained in the use of arms and weapons in various arms training camps being conducted by PFI across the country with the intention of raising a well-trained PFI army or militia,” one of the NIA chargesheets said.
The activities included empowerment of Muslims and marginalised sections of the society through campaigns and so-called social welfare schemes, in the guise of which the organisation was promoting its anti-India. Its cadres provided physical education training and weapons training, with those completing advanced training being inducted in its ‘hit squads’.