The Kerala Police have launched a crackdown on Islamist outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) following the arrest of 21 activists and seizure of weapons and bombs from a facility of the organisation in Kannur on Tuesday amidst reports that the objective of the training camp being held there could have been to unleash violence.
This is the first time such an extensive procedure is being undertaken against the Popular Front and its political wing Social Democratic Party of Indian (SDPI) after a crackdown in 2010 in the wake of the brutal attack, allegedly by their activists, on a college professor in which his right hand was chopped off.
The police have been holding raids at the offices of the organisation in various places in the northern Malabar region since Wednesday. On Thursday, a police team led by Kozhikode City Police Commissioner G Sparjan Kumar raided Unity House, the State committee office of the Popular Front in Kozhikode.
The police also carried out raids at the organisation’s offices in Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur and Kasaragod districts on Thursday. Inspection was also held at Peace Valley, the Popular Front office at Irattupetta in Kottayam district. Offices of the organisation in Kannur district had come under police examinations on Wednesday.
Investigators have intensified their inquiries into the functioning of the Popular Front in the wake of the developments. A detailed examination of the SIM cards confiscated from those arrested will be carried out to understand their possible foreign connections and to learn whether they have been getting external financial assistance, according to officials.
Though the police refused to divulge the details of raids at most of the offices, they said that nothing suspicious had been found from Unity House. Top officials, however, said that the raids in the Malabar region could continue and that these could be extended to central and southern Kerala also.
The police had in the raid on Tuesday at the office building of a social service organisation connected to the PFI at Narath, Kannur seized several weapons, bombs, bomb-making materials, an Iranian identification document, a human dummy that could be used for target-practising and several pamphlets, flags and other materials of the PFI and SDPI.
Senior officials had on Wednesday said that training camp had terror connections but the organisation denied this saying that it was farcical to claim that a terror training camp was going on in the middle of a busy town. It said the human dummy was no target-practicing aid but a scarecrow to be put on the under-construction building.
“Nothing unlawful was happening there. The weapons were not seized from there but were placed there by the police and those associating with them. Then they paraded those items claiming that efforts were on to set off riots,” said an office-bearer of the Popular Front on Thursday.
The police are now examining whether the PFI activists arrested from the training camp in Kannur had any connections with banned Islamist outfit like the SIMI. Though the Popular Front was under suspicion in the current case, possibility of infiltration into it by SIMI operatives could not be ruled out, said
an official.
The police are also trying to confirm reports that Islamists from other States had received training at the Kannur facility. As foreign currency notes and an Iranian identity card had been seized from those who were arrested, the State police would seek the assistance of Central agencies to find out whether they had foreign connections, sources said.