KALPETTA: The National Investigation Agency filed In its fifth chargesheet this month against the Popular Front of India (PFI), the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed charges against 19 persons, including 12 National Executive Council (NEC) members, founding members and senior leaders of the banned outfit. PFI, as an organisation, has also been charge-sheeted in the case relating to a criminal conspiracy aimed at destabilising and dismembering the country.
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. All these PFI trainers have been arrested in cases registered either by the NIA or by different state police forces, NIA sources said.
According to an NIA spokesperson, the agency also froze 37 Bank accounts of the PFI organisation as well as 40 Bank accounts belonging to 19 individuals associated with the PFI, virtually squeezing the organisation’s funding activities. The crackdown on these bank accounts took place across India, including Guwahati (Assam), Sundipur (West Bengal), Imphal (Manipur), Kozhikode (Kerala), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), New Delhi, Jaipur (Rajasthan), Bangalore (Karnataka), Hyderabad (Telangana) and Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh).
The case, under investigation since April 2022, had revealed that a criminal conspiracy was hatched by PFI, acting through the NEC, its members and persons associated with the PFI, to divide the country into communal lines. It has also come to light that the ultimate objective of the conspiracy was to overthrow the existing system of secular and democratic governance in India and replace it with an Islamic Caliphate, along with Shariah or Islamic Law, the NIA spokesperson said.
The PFI members/cadres charge-sheeted today under various sections of IPC and UA(P)Act have been identified as OMA Salam, E M Abdul Rahiman, Anis Ahmed, Afsar Pasha, V P Nazaruddin, E Abubacker, Prof. P Koya, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Abdul Wahid Sait, A S Ismail, Adv Mohd Yusuf among others.