NEW DELHI: In December 2020, Enforcement Directorate arrested KA Rauf Sherif, the general secretary of the Campus Front of India (CFI). That was the beginning of a multi-agency probe against the Popular Front of India (PFI) to unearth its entire network and source of finance.
A dossier prepared by ED after a four-year probe revealed PFI has hundreds of enlisted members and offices across Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, J&K, and Manipur.
The outfit, which was proscribed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in 2022 after a failed attempt on PM Modi’s life in July that year, has at least 13,000 members in Singapore and five Gulf countries, from where funds are generated in cash from ‘unknown donors’ and sent to India through hawala, according to the ED dossier.
Cash was then deposited in 29 bank accounts of trusts and affiliated entities. Agencies have arrested 26 of its top office bearers and seized properties and bank accounts in India and abroad over the last few years. A terrorist camp was also unearthed in Kerala. The dossier said the outfit was behind the Delhi riots, the unrest in Hathras, and an attempt on the life of PM Modi during his rally in Patna in July 2022. Prominent among those arrested since 2020 include Rauf Sherif, CFI national general secretary; Shafeeque Payeth, a PFI member based in Qatar; Perwez Ahmed, president of Delhi PFI; and Sahul Hameed, dealing in hawala for PFI from Singapore. . “Real objectives of PFI include carrying out an Islamic movement in India through jihad, though PFI masquerades itself as a social movement. Evidence reveals that the methods of protest employed by them are violent in nature,” ED said.
The agency said an arms training camp in Narath in Kerala’s Kannur district was found, and there, PFI was training cadres in use of explosives and weapons under the garb of physical education classes.
So far, the money trail has led to revelations of a collection of more than Rs 94 crore by PFI and its affiliates. ED has attached 35 properties worth Rs 57 crore dubbing them as ‘proceeds of crime’. The outfit has been found active in Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE from where most of its funds are generated.
“PFI has formed well defined district executive committees for the non-resident Muslim diaspora living in Gulf countries. It has been collecting money in India and abroad, and using it for terror activities in the country,” the agency said.