The Government of India, by a Gazette Notification on September 27, 2022, banned the Popular Front of India and its affiliated groups. This came after massive and unprecedented simultaneous raids by the National Investigation Agency, the Enforcement Directorate and the security apparatus on September 22 and 27.
Forty locations across the country where raided in the early hours of September 22, leading to the arrest of more than 100 PFI members. Another 240 activists were rounded up on September 27. This professional, early morning nationwide crackdown was unprecedented and took the PFI cadres by surprise.
Consequently, voluminous incriminating material like cash, inflammatory literature that included blueprints of subversion, arms training, crowd funding for illegitimate and anti-national activities was recovered. Subsequent to these arrests and follow up, there was widespread orchestrated violence in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, in protest.
Public property and buses were targeted and extensive use of petrol bombs was also seen as was observed during the Delhi riots. It is evident that wherever the local administration was firm, there was peace and calm, as in UP, Delhi and MP. But some cavalier local administrations were caught on the wrong foot, and there was mayhem, violence and arson. The Kerala State Road Transport Department has moved the Kerala High Court demanding compensation of Rs 5 crore, which they have lost at the hands of rioters.
The Student Islamic Movement of India was banned in 2001 for terror activities and it metamorphosed as the PFI in 2006 with the merger of three constituent organisations. Dr Mohamad Ahmadullah Siddiqui, the founder of SIMI, continued to be associated with PFI from Chicago and provided logistic and back-up support to the PFI. He is known to be working with the ISI and other anti-India individuals, like the notorious Ghulam Nabi Fai, an ISI operative convicted in the US for receiving money from the ISI.
Both of them have a long association of studying together in India and the US. Retired veterans (Ansars) of SIMI resurfaced in the PFI. This organisation has a versatile and active think tank, as is evident from the recovery of an insidious roadmap for the Islamization of India by 2047. This emerged from the recoveries made by NIA during the course of Phulwari Sharif raids in Bihar.
More incriminating material was recovered regarding their hit squads who were assigned to attack the perceived inconvenient targets. These hit squads where specially recruited, trained and then assigned the targets. These squads comprised handpicked, trained, motivated and brainwashed persons, to carry out pin-pointed attacks, as was evident in the case of Professor TJ Joseph in July, 2010, whose right hand was chopped off and multiple stab injuries inflicted on him for an alleged act of blasphemy.
The case was investigated by NIA and in May 2015, 13 of the accused were convicted, a fine of Rs 8 lakh imposed on them, to be paid as compensation to Professor Joseph.
VS Achuthanandan, the then Chief Minister, exclaimed that the radical Popular Front of India was aiming to convert Kerala into a Muslim country. In 2012, the Kerala government headed by Oommen Chandy apprised the Kerala High Court that PFI was “nothing but that resurrection of the banned outfit SIMI in another form”. There are 27 serious murder charges against them, and victims were mostly workers of the CPI(M) and RSS.
In 2012, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asserted that Kerala, along with few other states like Jammu and Kashmir, were witnessing rise in religious extremism. But no action was taken and the decision-makers allowed the problem to drift. Jharkhand is the only state that banned the PFI.
The gazette notification, dated September 28, enumerates the long list of criminality and overseas linkage of the PFI. It is on record that the IB specifically and clearly indicated the dangerous anti-national activities of this outfit in the annual conference of Directors General of Police in 2011.The same warning was given in 2017, during the DGP’s conference. Loknath Bahera, the then DGP of Kerala, gave a crisp presentation highlighting the various dimensions of the nefarious and anti-national activities of the PFI.
Shockingly, in a disgraceful act of appeasement, the then Karnataka government withdrew 175 serious criminal cases registered against the PFI, under the pretext that these cases were political in nature and falsely registered during the course of political agitations. Nothing is farther from the truth.
The PFI continues to enjoy the support of pseudo-secularists and those indulging in vote bank politics. There is no dearth of perverse busy bodies, MPs and Mohalla-level politicians who are crying hoarse, alleging vindictive action, inspite of the most convincing and incontrovertible evidence and the long history of anti-national activities.
The CPI and Congress spokespersons made ridiculous demands that the evidence against the PFI should be shared with them before such police action. Nothing could be more bizarre. To share evidence is akin to leaking the question paper before an examination, for the benefit of the unscrupulous. Nowhere in the world is this part of a law and order SOP.
The PFI has deep and functional association with international terrorist organisations like the ISIS and Al-Qaeda. The links are deep and well-established, but the shameless manner in which Pakistan instinctively rose in support of the PFI and vehemently criticised the ban is conclusive proof that the ISI and money from a failed state were there for the support and backup of the PFI.
This should not come as a surprise as pro-Pakistan slogans were raised in Pune by the PFI cadre.
Horrific riots in Delhi in February 2022 and the anti-CAA agitations across the country have the footprint of the PFI. It believed that the PFI collected crores of rupees through hawala and crypto channels and through crowd-funding. The pious Zakat donations were also misused by them, deceiving the trusting donors by using the proceeds for crime and subversion.
The Phulwari Sharif raids revealed the sinister PFI plot of converting India into an Islamic nation by 2047, the 100th year of India’s Independence. It’s a different matter that such delirious dreams can never come true. But the concern is the neurotic appeasement, compulsive vote bank politics of our myopic politicians.
It would be unrealistic to presume that an organization can be finished by banning it. The right approach would be to identify every single person in the top leadership and membership and ensure that biometrics and other forms of identification are collected and they are put under an effective surveillance system. Once and for all, their movable and movable assets should be confiscated.
Their publications and social media platform should also be banned and blocked effectively. Since they are known to be active in 17 states and there are 1,300 criminal cases against them, a special PFI cell should be created in the MHA and the IB on the lines of Left Wing Extremism to keep an effective check on their activities.
The writer is a former Director-General of Police, Uttar Pradesh. Views expressed are personal.
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