The probe agency has alleged PFI was involved in murder, terror attack plots and forced conversions.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has submitted a detailed report to the home ministry, recommending that the Kerala-based outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political arm, Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), be banned due to its involvement in acts of terror like bomb-making, a source in the agency said Wednesday.
An NIA investigator that the founding members of the PFI formed the core team of SIMI that was banned in 2001. They include former PFI chairman E.M. Abdurahiman, who was the general secretary of SIMI between 1982 and 1993, and SDPI president E. Aboobacker, who was Kerala state president of SIMI from 1982 to 1984.
The agency in its report claimed that the PFI is a “threat to national security” and is using outfits like Sathya Sarini in Malapurram to carry out “forced conversions”, the recent ones being that of Athira Nambiar and Akhila Ashokan.
“In the dossier that we prepared, we have also mentioned four cases in which the PFI is involved. They are: chopping of a professor’s palm in Kerala’s Idukki district, the murder of an RSS leader in Bengaluru, the Islamic State Al-Hindi module case plotting attacks in south India and the case of an ongoing training camp in Kannur from where bombs, IEDs and swords were recovered. All of these cases have shown involvement of PFI volunteers,” the investigator said.
“Though the organisation has not been banned yet, we have made the request citing concerns to the national security. We have also learned that the organisation is recruiting volunteers on a regular basis,” he added.
The NIA also said that they have got leads to establish that both Athira and Akhila were lured by one Sainaba — an activist with the PFI, SDPI — and Sathya Sarini, to embrace Islam.
According to the NIA, PFI is operational in 23 states and is suspected to have volunteers who are trained in making crude bombs. Sources also claimed that it runs institutes where young people are indoctrinated.