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NIA raids SDPI leader’s house in Karnataka over Bihar case
Searches were also conducted today morning in Shiv Ganga district in Tamil Nadu and South Kannada (Dakshina) district in Karnataka in the case pertaining to the involvement of Popular Front of India in anti-national activities
Bengaluru
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday carried out raids in several parts of the country, including Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in a case relating to the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its alleged involvement in an incident relating to causing disruptions in an event of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July.
“NIA conducted searches at 20 locations linked with the accused and suspects in the 9 districts of Bihar, including Nalanda, Katihar, Arariya, Madhubani, Patna, Vaishali, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur and Saran. Searches were also conducted today morning in Shiv Ganga district in Tamil Nadu and South Kannada (Dakshina) district in Karnataka in the case pertaining to the involvement of Popular Front of India (PFI) in anti-national activities,” the NIA said in a statement.
Officials were met with “go-back NIA”chants in Dakshina Kannada when it raided the home of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) leader Riyaz Farangipete’s house in the district.
“Recently in the month of July, relating to the Bihar incident, NIA came to my home in the guise of investigation, asked for documents and took details. I want to say that this NIA should be non partial as the BJP is in power in the centre and all these investigation agencies’ works are politically motivated,” Farangipete told reporters in the district.
He said the incident should be probed in a fair manner. He explained that since he was the national general secretary of the SDPI, he attended several conferences of the party in Bihar.
“On this, they came to probe. Five people have been arrested in this incident and they are probing the matter on this if there is anything else that is connected. We are supporting/cooperating with the probe. In July, there was some rumours that there were people going to disrupt the prime minister’s programme and arrested a few people including our district general secretary also in Bihar,” he said.
“They (NIA) asked a few questions and took a few documents and said that we should cooperate with the investigations in the future also. They seized my phone and my wife’s,” he added.
There were reports that the raids were in connection with the murder of Praveen Nettaru, a worker of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) youth wing.
NIA on Tuesday raided 30 locations across Karnataka, including Sullia, Bellare, Puttur, Uppinangady, Vitla and surrounding places. Buildings owned by SDPI leaders and the premises of relatives of 10 youths accused of Nettaru’s murder were raided, HT reported.
On August 10 NIA officially took over the probe into Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) leader Praveen Nettaru’s murder case. The NIA has obtained the custody of five key accused in the case for six days, said the official.
Nettaru,32, was hacked to death on July 26 when he was about to return home after closing his chicken stall at Bellare in Sullia taluk of Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka.
The NIA approached the special court on August 10 for custody of the accused till August 23 after the state police completed custodial investigations on August 16. The current raids are a follow-up to the interrogation of the suspects in the suspects in custody, said the officer.
