Guwahati: A coordinated operation on Thursday between the National Investigation Agency, Enforcement Directorate, and state police units across 11 states in various parts of the country netted 106 Popular Front of India (PFI) militants, sources said on Thursday.
Andhra Pradesh (5), Assam (9), Delhi (3), Karnataka (20), Kerala (22), Madhya Pradesh (4), Maharashtra (20), Puducherry (3), Rajasthan (2), Tamil Nadu (10) and Uttar Pradesh are among the states where the raids were carried out (8).
The largest investigation procedure to date involved many searches being done at various places. Over 1,500 members of the state police, the Central Armed Police Forces, and officers from the NIA and ED participated in the operation, which began late at night at 1 am and was expected to be finished by 5 am, according to ANI.
The raiding teams reportedly collected a number of damning documents, more than 100 cell phones, laptops, and other things.
These searches were done at those who were “financing terrorism, organising training camps, and radicalising people to join proscribed organisations” at their homes and places of business.
More than 100 PFI cadres have been detained in a huge operation involving the NIA, ED, and state police, sources said ANI earlier today.
Meanwhile, earlier today at the party office in the Dindigul area, more than 50 PFI protestors voiced their opposition to the raids.
Workers from the PFI and SDPI protested the raids in Mangaluru, Karnataka, and were then taken into custody by the state police.
PFI workers sat in the middle of the road in opposition to the NIA raid at the party office in Chennai.
In a PFI case, the NIA earlier this month also conducted 40 raids in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and apprehended four people.
In the case involving Abdul Khader of the Nizamabad district in Telangana and 26 other people, the agency had then conducted searches at 38 locations in Telangana (23 in Nizamabad, four in Hyderabad, seven in Jagityal, two in Nirmal, one in each of Adilabad and Karimnagar districts), as well as two locations in Andhra Pradesh (one each in Kurnool and Nellore districts).
The NIA had confiscated incriminating items during the operation, including digital gadgets, papers, two daggers, and Rs 8,31,500 in cash.
The defendants were allegedly “organised camps for imparting training to commit terrorist activities and to sow animosity amongst different groups on the basis of religion,” according to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
The National Development Front of Kerala, the Karnataka Forum for Dignity, and the Manitha Neethi Pasari of Tamil Nadu, three Muslim organisations that had been created after the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition, were combined to form the PFI, which was introduced in Kerala in 2006. PFI was created after combining some of the fringe organisations that had emerged in south India following the destruction of the Babri mosque.