‘Join CFI posters’ emerge in Shivamogga, probe on

The posters asking people to join CFI, written in blue and red paint, is in English were found in at least nine locations in the Shiralakoppa area of the district, said a senior police officer requesting not to be named.

A wall graffiti asking people to join the Campus Front of India (CFI) — student wing of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) — has emerged in multiple locations across Shivamogga district in Karnataka, police said on Sunday.

Talking about the incident, Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai said that police have already investigating the matter. (Representative Photo)

Police have launched a probe into the matter. The posters asking people to join CFI, written in blue and red paint, is in English were found in at least nine locations in the Shiralakoppa area of the district, said a senior police officer requesting not to be named.

Talking about the incident, Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai said that police have already investigating the matter. “Police are probing the case regarding the PFI wall painting. Strict action will be taken against those responsible,” he said.

A senior officer said a similar wall painting was found in Shivamogga on November 28 by police during a patrol and later it was removed. Since then more paintings have emerged.

“A star has been drawn along with writing in blue and red spray paint. Join CFI graffiti has been written next to the old petrol station, on the electricity pole leading to Bovi Colony, on the wall and electric pole near the cross leading to Dodda Banadakeri, on the electric pole of the cross of a man’s house identified as Chandrappa, on wall of the garage near Bilal’s house, on the side wall of Dodda Banada Keri Road and Mathada Keri Road, on the walls of Farooq and Bilal’s house,” the officer said.

Earlier, the Karnataka high court had on Wednesday upheld a ban on PFI and dismissed a petition challenging the Centre’s notification on the same. A PFI leader from the state had approached the high court challenging the Centre’s decision. A single judge bench of justice M Nagaprasanna had pronounced the order on the petition filed by one PFI activist named Nasir Pasha via his wife. Pasha is currently in judicial custody.

In September, the Centre had declared the PFI an ‘unlawful association’ and banned it for the next five years, as well as directed all the states and the Union Territories (UTs) to “exercise” powers of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act against the outfit and its affiliates.

Over 100 PFI cadres were arrested in multiple raids carried out across the country by the NIA, the Enforcement Directorate and the state agencies as well as police forces based on findings about a number of “instances of international linkages of PFI with global terrorist groups like IS”.

A senior officer, on the condition of anonymity, said that police will take the case seriously as an accused in a similar case in Mangaluru turned out to be a bomber few years later. The suspect responsible for the low-intensity improvised explosive device (IED) explosion in Mangaluru, Mohammed Shariq, 24, was arrested in December 2022. The arrest was the result of an investigation into a graffiti on the walls of a building in the East police station limits and on a wall in the North police station limits.

Shariq was then working as a salesperson at a cloth store owned by his father and had made the plan to draw the graffiti on the wall. “First they wrote on a dilapidated wall under the Mangaluru North police station limits, which they felt was never noticed by anybody. So, after a week they chose a more prominent location to put out the graffiti. They were arrested and later let off on bail,” said the officer.

It was two years later, in September Shariq’s name cropped up in another terror-related case. Shivamogga police on September 23 had said two associates of a person arrested in connection with the stabbing incident during a clash over VD Savarkar’s poster in Shivamogga on August 15 have links to the Islamic State.