Merely two days ahead of Delhi polls, the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday has made an explosive revelation exposing the close nexus between PFI and the Aam Aadmi Party, Congress, Bhim Army and other groups.
According to documents accessed by OpIndia, the Shaheen Bagh anti-CAA protests was funded by Popular Front of India (PFI) and leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress were in constant touch with the PFI chief.
According to the details produced by ED, a hefty sum of Rs 120.5 crores was credited in 73 bank accounts maintained by the Popular Front of India in 17 different banks. Out of these 73 accounts- 27 were directly maintained by PFI, 9 accounts were in the name of PFI’s related entity- Rehab India Foundation and the other 37 were in the name of certain individuals or entities in 17 different banks.
Majority of the deposits in these bank accounts were through cash deposits, said the details presented by ED sources. In these past several months, out of the donations received by PFI, more than half was received in cash. Out of the cash donations almost two-third was deposited in banks and the rest one-third was stacked in the PFI’s National headquarter situated in G-78, Shaheen Bagh, Delhi.
The PFI activists and members allegedly collected cash from people across India and handed it over to their area-specific handlers, who, then travelled to Delhi to deposit the cash at the PFI National headquarters in Shaheen Bagh.
In the last 10 months, PFI received Rs 30 lakh as a donation in the form of cash, cheque, RTGS, NEFT, UPI, etc. Out of the large sum around 50 per cent was received in cash. Out of the cash donation, approximately 60-65 per cent was deposited in the bank and the rest was kept in PFIs national headquarters in Shaheen Bagh.
The ED documents accessed by OpIndia say that the PFI President of Delhi, Mohammad Parvez Ahmed and it’s other members have actively participated in the anti-CAA protest in Shaheen Bagh.
Most importantly, it divulged that Md Parvez, the PFI chief was regularly in touch with Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh through Whatsapp chats, phone calls and also by way of direct meetings. Further, Parvez had also been in touch with many Congress leaders including Udit Raj.
The Enforcement Directorate documents also revealed that Parvez was a member of many Whatsapp groups such as ‘Bhim Army Top-100’, ‘Unification of Muslim Leadership’, etc.
Recently, the Delhi police had also exposed the nexus between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Shaheen Bagh shooter Kapil Gujjar. Pictures were released by the Delhi police which confirmed that Kapil Gujjar, who had fired bullets in Shaheen Bagh on Saturday and his father Gaje Singh were AAP leaders and were inducted into the party in 2019.
Additionally, the sources have revealed that in 10 accounts of PFI and 5 accounts of Rehab Foundation, over 1 crore rupees were deposited in small amounts, ranging from 5 thousand to 49 thousand. These deposits have been made after the Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed in the parliament, mostly through IMPS in mobile apps. The amounts were kept deliberately below the 50,000 limits to avoid detection.
Between 4 December 2019 and 6 January 2020, over 1.34 crores were allegedly withdrawn from these accounts, allegedly to be distributed among violent rioters to incite them to wreak havoc in the name of anti-CAA protests.
Ever since it came to light that the Shaheen Bagh attacker, Kapil Gujjar, who fired three shots in the air on February 1, is an AAP member, Aam Aadmi Party has been in a damage control mode, trying to delink themselves from the assaulter.
However, more and more pictures are emerging that links the shooter to the Aam Aadmi Party. A picture posted by prominent AAP leader Kuldeep Kumar, which was then deleted, had emerged in which it was seen that the party was welcoming Gujjar and his father Gaje Singh Chauhan along with party leaders Sanjay Singh and Atishi Marlena into AAP.
Later, it was found that the Aam Aadmi Party had itself posted images linking the shooter Kapil Gujjar to the party. The AAP had forgotten to remove from their official website an article that confirms that the Shaheen Bagh shooter was indeed an AAP member. In case the article is pulled down, the archived version can be accessed here. Senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh, who had felicitated Kapil Gujjar, also tried to wash his hands off him stating that the shooting was a BJP ploy.
The radical Islamist outfit, PFI has not only played an instrumental role in the Shaheen Bagh protest but it was also involved in inciting violence during anti-CAA protests in Uttar Pradesh and the funding of the violent anti-CAA protests across several parts of the country that ensued following the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act by both the houses of the parliament in December 2019.
While the Uttar Pradesh police had in December, last year, exposed PFIs link to the violence during anti-CAA protest in the state, an explosive investigation by the Enforcement directorate had also exposed that PFI spent about 120 crores in a month to orchestrate the violent riots in the country, naming eminent lawyer and Congress member Kapil Sibal and lawyers Indira Jaising and Dushyant Dave also as the beneficiaries of PFI’s funding.
