PFI's involvement in terror activities: NIA shares details with MHA

NEW DELHI: The Centre is mulling a crackdown on ‘radical’ outfit Popular Front of India (PFI), including banning it under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, over alleged involvement of its cadres in terror activities, sources in the home ministry said on Monday.“We have enough material on PFI’s terror links . The time has come to act and carry out a crackdown on it,” a senior home ministry official said days after the NIA submitted a dossier to the ministry detailing four terror cases in which its cadres have been chargesheeted or convicted under UAPA. The cases relate to chopping of a professor’s hand in Idukki, Kerala; holding of a training camp in Kannur from where swords and country-made bombs were allegedly seized; murder of RSS leader Rudresh in Bengaluru; and the Islamic State Al-Hindi Module case in which accused from Kerala and Tamil Nadu planned to hit targets in south India.The Times of India had on September 8 reported exclusive details of the NIA dossier.The dossier termed as “radical” PFI’s policy of recruiting only committed Muslim youth “who assiduously follow Islamic tenets” as well as their subsequent training with emotive clips of Babri Masjid demolition and communal riots aimed at instilling a sense of “Muslim persecution” in them.“Thus the recruits are guided to a besieged state of mind and trained in martial arts in the guise of self-defence and defence of the community,” it noted.The NIA dossier states that PFI cadres are encouraged to act as guardians of Islamic values, “thus effectively transforming them into moral police”. It further alleges that, Darul Khada, a PFI front comprising Muslim scholars, lawyers and social workers floated in 2009 by SDPI national chief E Aboobacker, is a parallel judiciary settling family problems, land and property disputes, personal issues and other grievances of Muslim community under ‘shariah’. According to NIA, a Kerala-level declaration by Darul Khada in Malappuram in July 2009 had called upon Muslim community not to go to civil courts but present all their issues before it.PFI leader P Koya, when contacted by TOI, clarified that while PFI believed in “identity politics” it did not work on sectarian lines. “NIA is trying to put across a false case against PFI. We have been around for 25 years but faced only a handful cases relating to sedition/UAPA. So where is the case for a terror ban?” he asked.The NIA paper claimed PFI affiliate Sathyasarani Islamic Dawah Institute or Markazul Hidya headquartered at Manjeri, Kerala, was functioning virtually as a religious conversion center where “inmates were subjected to rigorous religious training and until their conversion to Islam is over, they were not permitted to have any interaction with people outside”.Koya insisted there was nothing wrong in Sathyasarini limiting interaction of students with outside world. “Does a person leave a seminary while pursuing a religious routine?” he asked.