SIMI-backed Popular Front of India is fast becoming a m a j o r i n t e r n a l s e c u r i t y headache for the Government. The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is tracking the outfit, has specific information on its efforts to mobilise Muslims for seeking a “state within state” to address the community’s woes. W h a t h a s a l a r m e d Government is the outfit’s rapid growth among Muslims and Dalits and its alliances with certain regional parties. “This could make it the biggest internal security threat by 2014 p a r l i ame nt a r y p o l l s i f i t s growth is unchecked,” top NIA sources said. The radical outfit recently shifted its headquarters from Kerala to Delhi. It has held a secret meeting recently “in a bid to garner support for its separate Muslim state agenda”.
The demand for a separate state for the community, sources said, has prompted rattled agencies to step up surveillance on the outfit’s leaders. They did not elaborate on the venue of the secret meet or the leaders who attended it. They said specifics could endanger the moles planted in the outfit’s ranks. The possibility of PFI’s role in the Israeli diplomat terror attack case was also being looked into. Sources said NIA teams had also fanned out to Ut t a r P r a d e s h , K e r a l a , Maharashtra and Bhatkal and Udupi districts of Karnataka to generate leads, if any, in this regard. These two districts are considered to be hotbeds of SIMI/Indian Mujahideen radicals. Though NIA has not been formally entrusted with the Israel diplomat terror attack case, the agency is simultaneously carrying out investigations so that it has all the evidence and leads just in case the agency is handed over the probe intothe incident at a later stage. Mo r e s o, s i n c e at t h e National General Assembly (NGA) of PFI held between January 21 and 22 this year, the outfit had demanded scrapping all ties, including international coordination with Israel. It claimed, “It is after establishing diplomatic ties with Israel that our country has witnessed a series of mysterious terror attacks. The recent decision to open an Israeli consulate in Bangalore is another sign of growing impact of the Zionist state in our policy making.” The NGA passed a resolution against Indo-Israel friendship claiming the same to be “a very alarming sign for the future of the country (India)”.
Using vitriolic language against Israel, a Press release issued by the outfit said, “Israel, the number one terrorist state in the world, which openly exhibits and justifies violence against Palestinians for the past six decades, is receiving red-carpet welcome in each front by the UPA Government.” As things stand, FI’s political ambitions too are on display. It has fielded candidates in the UP elections under the banner of social Democratic Party of India, NIA sources said. “The outfit overtly claims to work for empowering Muslims and other marginalized communities like the Dalits across the country but has linkages with banned Students Islamic Movement of India. It has also gained expertise in fabrication of IEDs and organizing secret camps for imparting training to its cadres in the use of sharp-edged weapons,” sources maintained. “ To p I B o f f i c i a l s a n d Kerala police officers have also raised alarm over the activities of the suspect terror group but the Centre is yet to initiate measures to ban the outfit so that its vitriolic campaign and subversive agenda against the state is arrested in time,” NIA officials pointed out.
On Batla House encounter in which young but educated terrorists were liquidated in a police encounter, the outfit said, “The Congress party itself seems to be divided on the issue of handing over the Batla House encounter case to the CBI. The Batla House fake encounter case was a horrible instance where innocent Muslim youths were killed in cold blood by the Delhi Police.” “It (Batla House encounter) was not just an encounter but also a serious attempt of stereotyping Muslims especially the students. None of the political parties seem to be serious in providing justice to the victims and are only competing with each other in lip service. The NGA demanded the Central Government to take immediate steps for handing over the case to CBI and punish the culprits involved in this inhuman act,” the outfit said in a statement.
The NIA is also probing the chopping off of hands of a Kerala-based Christian professor by PFI cadres in 2010 for alleged blasphemy to Islam.
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