As I write this, the much-awaited Indian government’s banning of the PFI, the Popular Front of India, for five years has been announced under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
PFI was founded in 2007 at the Empower India conference held in Bengaluru by its predecessor, the NDF, The National Development Front. A few other outfits from the southern states, like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, merged with the PFI. PFI advocated reservations for Muslims and conducted violent protests. PFI is believed to be the resurrected form of SIMI, an affiliate of Indian Mujahideen, after the banning of the latter in 2001. PFI is also reported to be allying with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, recruiting radicalized Indian youths for them.
The National Investigation Agency, NIA, conducted widespread raids on terror-funding and money laundering charges. It resulted in nationwide arrests, numbering more than 250, which is a well-planned and executed action plan of the security forces of our country. PFI is a Muslim fundamentalist organization alleged to be receiving hundreds of crores of rupees as remittances from abroad to foment trouble in India.
After learning hard lessons, after a ban on SIMI, the PFI changed their strategy, pitching for national integration and promoting democratic values. In a sting operation on their founding member and managing editor of their mouthpiece Gulf Thejas, Ahmad Shareef confessed to PFI’s secret agenda of converting India into an Islamic State. PFI’s gruesome chopping of the hand of Professor TJ Joseph is one example of PFI’s real face.
In 2013 PFI organized a training camp in Kannur, Kerala, imparting training on the use of explosives and weapons for terrorism-related activities in India. Most Indians caught in Syria and Afghanistan fighting for the terrorists are from Kerala and are PFI activists. In 2020 a Facebook post on the Prophet flared up into riots instigated by the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political wing of PFI.
PFI had instigated protests over the CAA, the revocation of Art 370 in Kashmir etc. The Hijab protests are the handiwork of the Campus Front of India, CFI, and the student wing of PFI. An Al Qaeda-linked Turkish charity has reportedly sponsored many PFI disturbances in India.
I need not be a member of RSS or even a sympathizer with rightist leanings when defending India’s safety and security issues. PFI is vermin and must be exterminated from its roots. Such fundamentalists are like a hydra, regenerating a new head repeatedly as experience has taught. PFI had spread its tentacles from UAE, Oman, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar, to name a few countries from where it was growing with the objective of the dismemberment of India.
Though late, India’s banning of the PFI must be welcome by every patriotic Indian and everyone who hates terrorism as means of attainment of goals.
Jai Hind!
