New Delhi: Government investigative agencies are hot on the trail of the Popular Front of India (PFI) which has come under the scanner for ‘suspicious’ financial transactions which may have been used to fund anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests that turned violent in Uttar Pradesh, killing at least 20 people.
Formed in Kerala in 2006, the Kerala-based PFI has spread to new areas in northern India if government reports are to be believed.
In the last 13 years, PFI has set up an extensive network spanning across Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Goa to the Northeastern states including Assam and Manipur.
Hinting a possible link with the large-scale violent protests that rocked Uttar Pradesh in the aftermath of the enactment of the CAA, the agency sources indicated a new trend of huge and multiple cash deposits in PFI back accounts across several western Uttar Pradesh towns. At least Rs 120 crore is reported to have been deposited in 73 bank accounts operated by PFI.
CAA offers fast-track citizenship to non-Muslim religious minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and has become a controversial issue even as country-wide protests continue.
The Uttar Pradesh police have already asked for a ban on PFI.
In July 2012, the Kerala state government had filed an affidavit in the High Court saying PFI is “a resurrection of the banned outfit Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in another form”.
The PFI first shot to infamy when its name cropped up in a ghastly incident on July 4, 2010, when a college lecturer’s palm was chopped off in Kerala’s Muvattupuzha after he was attacked on ground of blasphemy.
The agencies probing the Islamist outfit include the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
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