Members of the Sufi Islamic Board held a press conference Saturday, March 26 at the Chennai Press Club to condemn the radical Islamist organisation Popular Front of India (PFI) for serving them with a defamation notice on March 17.
PFI has served a defamation notice to Sufi Islamic Board after the Tamil Nadu Police, on the request of the Sufi Islamic Board, revoked permission for the radical Islamist organization Popular Front of India to organize a march at multiple locations across the state on March 4.
Speaking at the press conference, the National President of Sufi Islamic Board Mansoor Khan along with Shaukat Ali, Noor Mohammad, Imtiyaz Shareef and other members of the Board announced that they will not stop until PFI is banned in India because they are radicalising the youth of India.
Mocking PFI for sending a defamation notice to the Sufi Islamic Board, Mansoor Khan said “an organisation which has 1300 cases against it says to me that we are defaming them. What fame does The Popular Front of India carry when charge sheets have been produced against it, many cases have been proven against them. They say that they are being defamed.”
Mansoor Khan added that his organisation is in the process of replying to PFI’s legal notice. “We will not stop unless there is a complete ban on such organisations like The Popular Front of India, its allies and other organisations mentioned in our press note.”
Notably, the Sufi Islamic Board was responding to a defamation notice sent to them by radical Islamist outfit PFI on March 17.
In the defamation notice, the Islamist organization PFI had referred to an article published by The Hindu on March 9, 2022. The Hindu article was titled “Permission denied for PFI’s unity march in five districts, DGP tells HC”. It had mentioned a petition filed by Y Shaukat All Mohammad, the Advisor of the Sufi Islamic Board, wherein he had sought Madras High Court to direct the DGP to restrain the PFI cadre from taking out the march on the ground that it might disturb communal peace and harmony.
The report by The Hindu quoted Mohamed, an advisor to the Sufi Islamic Board as accusing PFI of having links with Turkish jihadist charity group Insan Hak ve Hurriyetleri ve Insani Yardum Vakfi, popularly known as IHH.
He claimed that EM Abdul Rahiman and P. Koya, two key leaders of PFI, were privately hosted in Istanbul in 2018 by IHH, whose Turkish name stands for the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief. The petitioner claimed it was an al-Qaeda-linked Turkish charity.
The litigant also claimed that PFI was found to be involved in the 2011 Mumbai bombings, the 2012 Pune blasts and the 2013 Hyderabad Dilsukhnagar attack. He said the organisation shared its ideology with the Muslim Brotherhood, an international terror organisation banned in Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia and so on.
The PFI, taking offence at the remarks, had sent a defamation notice to the Sufi Islamic Board on March 17.
Application of Sufi Islamic Board seeking revocation of permission granted to PFI for organising unity march
It may be noted that in its letter to the DGP Tamil Nadu on March 2, 202, seeking revocation of permission granted to PFI for organising unity march, the Sufi Islamic Board had outlined PFI’s involvement in anti-national and terror-related operations. The letter specifically said that the PFI is involved in a gold smuggling network in Kerala, marriage for conversion in Karnataka and Kerala, anti-CAA riots in Delhi, committing “sedition,” hijab protest, and stirring communal violence in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
It further asserted that the NIA is now investigating over 100 PFI members in various instances throughout India, while the ED is investigating the group for allegedly supporting the 2020 Delhi riots as well as rallies against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
Furthermore, in asking for the termination of the permits, it noted that in April 2021, the Central Government assured the Supreme Court that it was “in the process” of banning the PFI, but that is yet to materialize, and the PFI is also operating as a proxy of the banned organization SIMI.
