KOCHI: A probe by NIA has found that the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) maintained a secret wing of ‘Reporters’ (informants) to collect details of leaders of a particular community for preparing a list of ‘targets.’ This was stated in a report filed by the agency at the NIA Court in Kochi seeking more time to complete the probe into the PFI’s activities in Kerala. The court granted more time to complete the investigation following the national agency’s request.
Prior to banning PFI, the NIA had carried out raids on the offices and residences of its leaders in Kerala and registered a case. As many as 14 office-bearers were arraigned as accused and 13 were arrested.
According to NIA, the investigation revealed that PFI, its cadres and office-bearers committed various murders in Kerala and outside with the intention to create terror in the minds of members of a particular community. Some of the victims of such murders did not even have any association or previous engagement with PFI. “These victims were randomly selected by the leadership of PFI.
They were studied, and permission was given by PFI leaders to attack and kill them brutally so as to send a message of terror to society. Some of the accused persons in the case are also accused in such murder cases and the involvement of other accused in the larger conspiracy in such cases was also revealed,” stated the report.
According to NIA, the banned outfit had a secret wing of ‘Reporters’ to collect details of the leaders of a particular community and prepare a list of ‘targets.’ “It is also revealed that PFI is imparting training on subversive activities to its cadres in PFI offices and other places. The modus of operandi of PFI in collecting such details and imparting training to its cadres and the larger conspiracy hatched by the leaders and cadres for committing the crime have to be investigated in detail,” stated the report.
NIA claimed that one of the accused persons in the case was a leader of the banned Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). Similarly, PFI leaders and cadres propagated the ideology of the proscribed terrorist organisation, Islamic State (IS), and joined the proscribed organisation in Syria. NIA is conducting a probe into the role played by PFI in spreading disaffection against India by wrongful interpretation of government policies to a particular section of people to create hatred against the state machinery.