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NIA squeezes PFI's funding, foils plans to form trained militia
The PFI case was registered in September 2022 by the NIA to probe the criminal conspiracy hatched by the PFI and its leaders and cadres to create a wedge and between people of different communities with the ultimate objective of establishing an Islamic Rule in India by 2047.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has charged 19 senior leaders of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) in connection with a criminal conspiracy aimed at destabilising and dis-membering India. In a bid to tighten noose around the banned outfit by squeezing funding activities, NIA has frozen 37 bank accounts of the PFI as well as 40 bank accounts belonging to 19 individuals associated with the group. The crackdown on these banks took place in multiple cities across the country, including Guwahati, Chennai, New Delhi, Jaipur, Bangalore, and Hyderabad.
The investigation has revealed that PFI had hatched a conspiracy to divide the country on communal lines, according to NIA. The agency also charged that the ultimate objective was to overthrow the existing system of governance in India and replace it with an Islamic Caliphate, along with Sharia law, a set of codes drawn from the Quran and sayings of Prophet Muhammed.
The probe has exposed a trail of funding by the banned outfit to its terror operatives and weapons trainers across the country in the guise of payment of salaries.
“PFI had devised a well-planned strategy to wage an armed struggle against the Government of India by radicalising and recruiting Muslim youth who had already pledged their allegiance to the PFI and its ideology and tactics through administration of oath of secrecy and loyalty (bayath),” the agency said in a statement.
“These highly radicalised men were being trained in the use of arms and weapons in various Arms Training Camps being conducted by PFI across the country with the intention of raising a well-trained PFI Army/militia. PFI had hatched plans for its Army/militia to wage a war to disintegrate and dismember the Indian Republic, as constituted by the Constitution of India, to establish an Islamic Caliphate.”
The accused in the chargesheets by NIA have been charged under various sections of IPC, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and the Arms Act, 1959.
