Radical Islamic outfit PFI back in news
SUBHASHIS MITTRA - Wide Angle
Radical Islamic outfit, the Popular Front of India, is back in news, and this time with a bang. News of two back to back crackdowns on the organisation is hogging the headlines.
Reports that the outfit is responsible for several violent attacks, indoctrination, armed training and funding terrorist activities have become a matter of grave concern for the security establishment, prompting the Union Home Ministry to impose a five-year ban on the PFI, which has allegedly been involved in a series of violent incidents and is said to have "links" with global terror groups like ISIS.
Security experts, however, say that fighting the PFI’s brand of hate politics requires a nuanced political response as it not only poses a security threat but also throws a political challenge.
Some of the PFI's founding members are said to be leaders of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). The PFI has linkages with Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) too. Both SIMI and JMB and are proscribed organisations.
Though the PFI has an explicitly toxic agenda and history of carrying out political murders, the previous attempts at prosecuting its leaders did not succeed. Rather, they went on to acquire a halo of victimhood and attracted more supporters to their jihadist ideology.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which recently conducted a series of searches and raids at various locations spread over 11 states in collaboration with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and arrested a large number of PFI leaders, needs to unearth credible evidence to blow the lid and explore the nefarious activities of the organisation, now proscribed.
Other organisations which were also declared banned by the MHA 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 PFI and its associates or affiliates or fronts have been working covertly to increase the radicalisation 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 PFI created these associates or affiliates or fronts to enhance its reach among different sections of the society such as the youth, students, women, Imams, lawyers or weaker sections of the society with the sole objective of expanding its membership, influence and fund-raising capacity.
The Centre has also empowered the state governments to take action against these groups which were affiliated with the PFI and the possible action against them could be seizure of places and arrest of their members.
The MHA says these associates or affiliates or fronts have a 'hub and spoke' relationship. The PFI acts as the hub and utilises the mass outreach and fund-raising capacity of its associates or affiliates or fronts to strengthen its capability for unlawful activities and these associates or affiliates or fronts function as "roots and capillaries through which the PFI is fed and strengthened".
More than 150 people allegedly linked with PFI were detained or arrested in raids across seven states last week, five days after a similar pan-India crackdown against the 16-year-old group that had led to the arrest of over a hundred of its activities and seizure of several dozen properties.
The PFI emerged from a radical strand in Muslim politics that found resonance within a section of the community after the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992 and the rise of Hindutva politics. It was also influenced by ideas of political Islam that gained ground after the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s.
When the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), the prominent exponent of this politics, was banned, new groups emerged. These outfits ostensibly articulated their politics through the prism of rights guaranteed by the Constitution but their work often violated the norms of legitimate political action.
The PFI also came under the scrutiny of various Central and State agencies in connection with the alleged ‘Love Jihad’ incidents in Kerala, forced conversion of people belonging to other faiths and disappearance of some people from the State to join the Islamic State in Afghanistan and Syria.
The PFI activists and their allied organisations were also arrested for the killings of RSS-BJP leaders in Kerala in recent months. The fundraising activities of the PFI are also being investigated by Central agencies like the ED and Income Tax Department. The PFI taps into public resentment to earn political legitimacy.
The group came into being on December 19, 2006, with the merger of the Karnataka Forum for Dignity and the National Development Front (NDF).
The NDF was formed after the Babri Masjid demolition and subsequent riots in 1993. Officials said the PFI has been under the radar of security agencies for its alleged role in violent protests in different parts of the country against CAA, forced conversions, radicalisation of Muslim youths, money laundering and maintaining links with banned groups.
It has been accused of killing people associated with organisations espousing other faiths, collecting explosives to target prominent people and places, supporting the Islamic State and destroying public property to strike terror among people.
The NIA, according to the officials, has secured 45 convictions as part of earlier probes against the PFI and has charge-sheeted 355 people in these cases.
According to law enforcement agencies, the PFI has over 50,000 members and many sympathisers in Kerala. In May this year, the Kerala High Court observed that the PFI and its affiliate Social Democratic Party of India were “extremist organisations” but not banned.
"The PFI cadre are encouraged to intervene and react even in minor cases against members of the Muslim community. They are also encouraged to act as guardians of Islamic values, thus effectively converting them into moral police.
"Its cadre are given training in martial arts and combat using sticks, knives or swords in their strongholds," says a document prepared by an agency on the PFI, which is also accused of receiving funds from its sympathisers, mostly Indians based in the Gulf countries. It has branches in over two dozen states and union territories including Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Assam and Manipur.
Intelligence agencies claim that PFI was involved in a series of violent activities, the most sensational being the chopping of the hand of professor T J Joseph for allegedly insulting Prophet Mohammed in a question paper. The PFI is also accused of organising a camp for imparting training to commit violent and terrorist acts.