In the early hours of Thursday, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) launched a huge search operation at 28 places throughout Kerala with the goal of finding second rung leaders of the outlawed Popular Front of India (PFI). According to a senior officer, the raid followed PFI officials’ plans to reorganise the group under a different name.
In Ernakulam, eight places connected to the PFI’s leaders were searched, while in Thiruvananthapuram, six locations were being watched. At the time this article was being written, the raid, which began at 4 am, was still going on.
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The raids were carried out in conjunction with the state police in response to specific information against PFI cadres who are suspected of participating in a number of terrorist acts and the murder of several people, including Sanjith (Kerala, November 2021), V-Ramalingam (Tamil Nadu, 2019), Nandu (Kerala, 2021), Abhimanyu (Kerala, 2018), Bibin (Kerala, 2017), Sharath (Kamataka (Tamil Nadu, 2016).
In a previous statement, the ministry of home affairs said that the PFI cadres had committed crimes and committed heinous killings solely for the purpose of “disturbing public peace and tranquilly and creating a reign of terror in the public mind.”
The PFI was established in Kerala in 2006, and in 2009 it launched the Social Democratic Party of India as a political front. The Union government banned the fundamentalist group, which was founded in Kerala and eventually spread to other regions of the nation, in September of this year.
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Following extensive violence caused by PFI members’ hartals, which led to the ban, the Kerala High Court ordered the state government to seek compensation from the officer-bearers and suspects in the case for any property damage.
