Year 2022: The year that the Union of India banned the Popular front of India

New Delhi, Dec 15: The run up to the date September 29 2022 was very interesting. The National Investigation Agency along with the Enforcement Directorate carried out scores of raids against the Popular Front of India.

On September 28, the government decided that it was time up and banned the Popular Front of India (PFI) for five years after it was found that it was indulging in terror funding.

Rehab India Foundation (RIF), Campus Front of India (CFI), 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, affiliates of the PFI were also banned by the government.

Much needed:

The ban on the PFI was being anticipated for long. It was found that the outfit was indulging in alleged terror funding and recruiting youth for terror groups. The agencies also found a number of instances of the international linkages of the PFI with global terror groups and some of the activists had joined the Islamic State and took part in acts of terror in Syria.

During the raids carried out by the NIA and ED on September 22 and 27, scores of PFI operatives were arrested. While 106 were arrested in the first round of the raids, the second one ended up in the arrest of 247 operatives.

A government notification following the ban read, "Investigations in various cases have revealed that the PFI and its cadres have been repeatedly engaging in violent and subversive acts. Criminal violent acts carried out by PFI include chopping off limb of a college professor, cold blooded killings of persons associated with organisations espousing other faiths, obtaining explosives to target prominent people and places and destruction of public property."

Clamour for the ban:

The PFI became the 43rd organisation in the country to be banned under Section 35 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967. With the activities of the PFI spiralling out of control and the agencies seeing a hand of the outfitting almost all incidents of violence, the clamour for the ban had become extremely loud.

The NIA had said that the PFI is the Indian recruiter for global terror groups such as the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Tayiba.

In 2017 itself the NIA had prepared a dossier on the PFI listing the various incidents of violence that the outfit has been involved in. The case relating to the chopping of a professor's hand in Kannur, murder of RSS worker Rudresh and the Islamic State module case had been cited in the dossier.

The long list of crimes:

In addition to the long list of violent crimes that the PFI had indulged in, the NIA also said that the PFI follows a policy aimed at communalisation and believes in the Taliban brand of Islam. It triggers divide and also has a group of volunteers for physical activity, the NIA had said.

The NIA also had cited the Love Jihad case and Sid that the PFI has been indulging in actions detrimental to overall national security. It said that the PFI was using its sister organisation, Sathya Sarani based in Mallapuram, Kerala to carry out forced confessions.

The NIA had also said that the founding leaders of the outfit were associated with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India.

Prior to the ban, the PFI had a presence in 23 states. It had the strongest wings in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The dossier pointed out that the PFI has a machinery to meet violent ends. The PFI has training squads and experts well-versed in the preparation of crude bombs and IEDs, an intelligence wing and action squads which would run its unlawful and violent activities. The PFI also operated clandestine training centres where Muslim youth were indoctrinated and trained in martial arts.