The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has said that the Islamist organisation, Popular Front of India (PFI), had plotted to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally in Patna. In addition, the ED claimed that the PFI was preparing terror modules and other attacks. The PFI was also involved in the acquisition of terrorist modules, lethal weapons, and explosives for use in assaults on critical locations and individuals in UP.
According to a Times of India report, the ED in its remand note against PFI member Shafiq Payeth, who was arrested in Kerala on Thursday, made a shocking assertion that the PFI had organized a training camp to attack PM Modi during his visit to Patna on July 12 this year. It is worth remembering that in October 2013, militants linked with the Indian Mujahideen, who, like the PFI, are members of the banned Students Islamic Movement in India (SIMI), bombed PM Modi’s rally.
The ED also revealed data of Rs 120 crore collected by the PFI over the years, largely in cash, and how the money was used to foment riots and terror attacks across the country. Following a nationwide raid on the organization in which multiple agencies, including the National Investigation Agency (NIA), arrested over 100 activists linked with the organization, the ED nabbed four PFI members on Thursday.
The ED apprehended three other Islamist leaders in Delhi, including Parvez Ahmed, Mohammad Ilyas, and Abdul Muqeet. Since the money laundering probe against PFI began in 2018, the agency has questioned all of them several times. The Enforcement Directorate has charged arrested PFI member Shafiq Payeth, who was previously stationed in Qatar, with illegally using his NRI account in India to transfer money from outside to PFI in order to cause disruptions in the country.
When the ED investigated Payeth’s premises last year, it found investments in real estate businesses and the diversion of those funds into PFIs. “In the last five years, about Rs. 120 crore has been placed in the accounts of PFI and its linked businesses,” the agency claimed.
“A significant portion of this fund was transferred in accounts from unknown and suspicious sources both within and outside the country. These funds have been used for illegal activities such as inciting Delhi riots in February 2020, sending PFI workers to Hathras with the intent of fanning communal tensions, instigating riots and terror, and gathering lethal weapons and explosives to launch attacks on important and sensitive places and leaders in Uttar Pradesh in order to undermine the nation’s unity, integrity, and sovereignty,” ED added.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which arrested 45 of the 109 leaders and activists of the Popular Front of India on Thursday during a nationwide crackdown with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the police across 15 states, has seized documents revealing that prominent Hindu leaders were on target.
