'We demand for RSS to be banned too', says Congress MP on PFI Ban

Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 28: Kodikunnil Suresh, the Congress MP from Kerala, has compared RSS with the Popular Front of India (PFI) and said the BJP's ideological mentor must also be banned as it has been spreading Hindu communalism.

''We demand for RSS also to get banned. PFI ban is not a remedy, RSS is also spreading Hindu communalism throughout the country. Both RSS & PFI are equal, so govt should ban both. Why only PFI?,'' Kodikunnil Suresh, Congress MP & Lok Sabha Chief Whip, in Malappuram said.

The Centre has imposed a ban on the Popular Front of India (PFI) and several of its associates for their alleged terror activities.

The organisations which were also declared banned under the stringent anti-terror law UAPA include Rehab India Foundation (RIF), Campus Front of India (CF), All India Imams Council (AIIC), National Confederation of Human Rights Organisation (NCHRO), National Women's Front, Junior Front, Empower India Foundation and Rehab Foundation, Kerala.

The action of the Central government came days after a countrywide crackdown on the 16-year-old PFI, arrest of over a hundred of its activities and seizure of several dozen properties.

In a late Tuesday night notification, the Union Home Ministry said some of the PFI's founding members are the leaders of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the PFI has linkages with Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). Both JMB and SIMI are proscribed organisations. It said there had been many instances of international linkages of PFI with global terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The PFI and its associates or affiliates or fronts have been working covertly to increase the radicalization of one community by promoting a sense of insecurity in the country, which is substantiated by the fact that some PFI cadres have joined international terrorist organisations, the notification claimed.