Defence
NIA Conducts Raids Across Five States To Foil PFI Conspiracy To Disturb Peace
National Investigation Agency (Representational Image)
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted raids and searches across five states on Sunday (13 August) as part of its probe into the outlawed outfit Popular Front of India (PFI)'s activities.
As many as 14 locations in Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Bihar were raided, resulting in the seizure of incriminating digital devices and documents.
The NIA's objective was to "unearth the banned outfit’s conspiracy to disturb the peace and communal harmony of India."
"The NIA has been working to unravel and thwart the attempts by PFI and its top leadership to create an armed cadre and raise a PFI Army for establishing an Islamic Caliphate in India by the year 2047 through acts of terror, violence and sabotage," the NIA said in a statement.
"PFI has been conspiring to radicalise gullible youth and provide them weapons training in a bid to further its violent anti-India agenda by fighting against certain sections of the society," it added.
The probe agency suspects that some PFI agents are operating as master trainers, conducting arms training camps across different states to train highly radicalised PFI cadres in the use of weapons such as iron rods, swords, and knives.
Over the past few months, the NIA has been conducting raids in multiple locations to identify and apprehend these cadres and operatives based on intelligence and investigative analysis.
The NIA registered a case against the PFI in April 2022. Through country-wide operations in September that year, the NIA collected incriminating evidence and arrested several top PFI leaders, including over a dozen national executive committee members.
In a statement, the probe agency continued, "The NIA conducted intensive investigations against the accused and filed a chargesheet against 19 of them in March 2023. PFI as an organisation was also named in the chargesheet.
"Subsequently, in April 2023, a supplementary chargesheet was filed against the PFI National Coordinator of weapons training."
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