PFI had trained its teams to eliminate targets: NIA

CHENNAI: The National Investigation agency (NIA) on Friday filed two chargesheets in special courts against 68 activists of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) in two separate cases in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, an official said.

Investigations revealed that PFI was using its various campuses, facilities and infrastructure to impart arms training to selected cadres in the guise of Physical Education, Yoga Training. They also established a 'reporters wing' and 'service teams or hit teams' to eliminate their targets, a press release said on Friday.

The chargesheets filed in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the two states where PFI is the most active, relate to separate criminal conspiracies hatched by PFI to carry out acts of violence with the ultimate objective of establishing an Islamic rule in India by 2047.

Whenever required, PFI pressed into service its loyal and highly trained cadre of their 'service teams' as 'executioners' of the orders pronounced by their parallel courts, called 'Dar-ul-Qaza', the release said.

The number of chargesheets filed by the agency against PFI members this month, has gone up to four. The first charge-sheet was filed in Jaipur in Rajasthan on March 13 and the second in Hyderabad in Telangana on March 16.

On Friday, a chargesheet was filed in the special court for NIA cases, Ernakulam-Kochi, against the PFI as an organisation and 58 accused persons, while 10 workers of the PFI, including state vice president Khalid Mohammad, were named in the chargesheet filed in the special NIA court in Chennai.

Investigations in the case had revealed that the accused had been conspiring to drive a wedge between different communities and groups living in India, spreading the concept of violent extremism and Jihad in India, the release said.

NIA investigations in the case had shown that the accused had conducted radicalisation programmes to motivate, instigate and recruit gullible Muslim youth, who were then provided weapons training in training camps.

PFI cadre used to carry out instructions of PFI office bearers and leaders to conduct recce and attack adversaries and commit unlawful and violent activities, the release added.