The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached 35 immovable properties worth ₹56.56 crore in connection with the money laundering probe against the banned Popular Front of India (PFI). The outfit had more than 13,000 active members in Singapore, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, it said on Friday.
The ED probe is based on various cases registered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and other enforcement agencies.
“Investigations revealed that the office-bearers, members, and cadre of PFI were conspiring and raising/collecting funds from within India and abroad through banking channels, ‘hawala’, donations, etc. for committing and financing terrorist acts across India,” said the agency.
According to the ED, the outfit raised finds to the tune of ₹94 crore from different parts of the country and abroad. The money was deposited in its 29 bank accounts in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, and Manipur.
The agency has so far arrested 26 accused persons linked to the proscribed outfit and submitted nine prosecution complaints in the case from February 2021 to May 2024.
“The PFI had formed well-defined District Executive Committees (DECs) for the Non-Resident Muslim diaspora living in the Gulf countries, which was tasked with collection of funds. Each DEC was given a target of several crores of rupees for funds collection. The funds raised abroad were transferred to India through circuitous banking channels, as well as through underground ‘hawala’ channels… thereafter, handed over to PFI and its office-bearers to finance their terrorist and unlawful activities,” said the ED.
The ED probe revealed that the “real objectives of PFI include formation of an organisation for carrying out an Islamic movement in India through Jihad, though PFI masquerades itself as a social movement. PFI claimed use of non-violent forms of protest but evidence reveal that the methods of protest employed by them are violent in nature”. It allegedly took steps to prepare for a “civil war by creating unrest and strife in society”.
‘Secret agents’
As alleged, the PFI employed several methods for undermining national unity and sovereignty, ranging from civil disobedience of laws, running a parallel government, and even disclosing the identities of “secret agents”. It posed an economic threat through counterfeiting of goods, preclusive purchasing/non-violent takeover/seizure of assets.
“PFI was giving arms training under the garb of physical education classes for imparting offensive and defensive manoeuvres using different variations of blows, punches, kicks, knife and stick attacks. These classes were carried out on the properties registered under dummy owners’ names. Interestingly, PFI does not have a single property registered in its own name,” the ED said.
It is alleged that the PFI members were involved in inciting violence and fomenting trouble leading to the Delhi riots of February 2020. The PFI/CFI members visited Hathras (Uttar Pradesh) with an intent to disturb communal harmony, incite communal riots, and spread terror. The outfit was organising a training camp with an intent to cause disturbance during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Patna visit on July 12, 2022.
Besides the assets in the name of PFI’s Basheer T. and Abdul Salam T.P., the properties attached by the ED are in the name of entities operating in different parts of Kerala.