Has SIMI Morphed Into PFI?
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2020-12-04 11:27:22
About the Author
What is the best way for banned organizations to carry on their activities unhindered? Change the name, form a new committee and operate from a different office address. This is a global practice by outlawed radical outfits. Agencies in India investigating into the affairs of the Popular Front of India (PFI) are veering around to the view that PFI is nothing but Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in a new incarnation.
PFI was launched in 2006. Agencies are amazed that it has spread all over India in these 14 years and is receiving huge funds. Although SIMI was banned in 2001, it could be that before launching PFI, the work was being undercover. The sweep of PFI shows that it operates as SIMI used to. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the organization's offices and homes and offices of those close to it across 9 states. These were the same 9 states where SIMI was most active. In the last two years since it began probing PFI, the ED has found that it received Rs 120 crore was deposited in its bank accounts across India, out of which Rs 55 crore was in cash. The source of the cash deposits in not clear and is being investigated.
PFI was registered in Kerala but is now headquartered in Shahin Bagh in Delhi. Interestingly, the ED has found that more than 90 withdrawals were made from a specific account of PFI between December 12 and 21 in 2019. That was the time anti-CAA protests were at their peak in UP. The ED is trying to establish the money trail to see if these funds were used to fund the movement or to radicalize the youth.
Since the ED and the NIA are both probing the affairs of the PFI, they need to establish both the source and application of funds to find out whether the organization is actually doing social work, as it claims, or is engaged in nefarious activity that endangers communal harmony in India. They also need to find out whether funds are being channelized in PFI through ISI-sponsored organizations abroad to foment trouble in the country. If PFI is linked to any conspiracy, or if it is found to be receiving funds from the enemies of the nation, it should be banned immediately.
