India's top counter-terrorist taskforce National Investigation Agency on Sunday carried out searches in multiple locations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in a major crackdown on Popular Front of India. The NIA sleuths raided 40 locations, including 38 locations across six districts in Telangana and two locations in two districts of Andhra Pradesh in connection with a case linked to the PFI, an extremist Islamic organisation, according to people familiar with the matter.
NIA raids were reported in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. (HT PHOTO)
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The agency was carrying out searches at the residence of Shahid Chaush alias Shahid, the main accused in the case. Shahid has been served a notice under 41(A) Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPc). HT has learnt that the investigation is based on establishing and finding the sources of terrorism.
The case was registered in July this year against PFI members by Nizamabad Police Station in Telangana under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and section 13(1)(b) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Abdul Kader and 26 persons and others were named in the FIR relating to some anti-national activities in a house located near Osmania Masjid in Nizamabad. Kader, Sheikh Sahadulla, Md Imran and Md.Abdul Mobin were arrested by the state police and, later, the case was re-registered by NIA on August 28.
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NIA said in a release that the accused were organising camps for imparting training to commit terrorist acts and to promote enmity between different groups on the basis of religion. The NIA team conducting the raids seized incriminating materials, including digital devices, documents, two daggers, cash ₹8,31,500 . Four persons have been detained for questioning.
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NIA said in a release that the accused were organising camps for imparting training to commit terrorist acts and to promote enmity between different groups on the basis of religion. The NIA team conducting the raids seized incriminating materials, including digital devices, documents, two daggers, cash ₹8,31,500 . Four persons have been detained for questioning.
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"In pursuance of the criminal conspiracy, they recruited the members of Popular Front of India (PFI), organised camps for imparting training for committing terrorist acts. They formed an unlawful assembly and promoted enmity between different groups on the basis of religion and were involved in activities disrupting sovereignty and territorial integrity of India," the FIR reads.
"On searching the house, one Flexi with the name of Popular Front of India (PFI), bamboo sticks, whiteboard, non-chaks, one podium, note-books, handbooks and other materials were seized by Telangana Police. This amounts to a conspiracy to wage war against the Government of India."
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
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Home/India News/NIA raids multiple locations in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana in case linked to PFI
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