Plain-clothes officers of the country’s premier anti-terrorist wing, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), arrived in seven districts of Kerala on the morning of 29 December and carried out surprise raids at at least 56 premises linked to second-line politicians in the recent past. Popular Front of India banned (PFI).
The massive pre-dawn raids mainly targeted suspected PFI members in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam, Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, Kozhikode and Malappuram.
financial information
State law enforcement officials associated with the operation said the presence of tax enforcers in the raiding parties helped collect personal financial information, including tax filings, of suspected PFI operatives with the aim of dismantling the banned organization’s secret money-making mechanisms. Pointed to a bid of NIA for.
In earlier court filings, the NIA had accused PFI of raising funds for illegal activities under the guise of charities, NGOs, human rights advocates and other seemingly legitimate platforms.
Local officials said that it appears that the NIA has discovered information on PFI’s financial backers, including firms and businesses, to determine whether the legal aid given to jailed PFI leaders is being received from illegal and foreign sources. Whether there is money laundering or not.
misuse of charity
A state police investigator pointed out that charity was a core tenet of most religions, and PFI operatives may have secretly collected money in the name of orphanages and for building places of worship to finance radical activities.
He said the NIA, as per tradition, was likely to share the results of the raids with the Enforcement Directorate, the country’s apex anti-money laundering agency, as “third party information” for follow-up.
The official said the inspections seem to have had little effect in boosting the organisation’s efforts to ban hidden donors of the PFI.
Pre-emption of PFI’s resurgence
The NIA raid was also aimed at preventing the PFI from resuming its activities in a new guise.
In a court filing last month, the NIA claimed to have unearthed a plot to eliminate leaders of a rival organisation.
The scale of Thursday’s raids appeared to suggest the urgency of thwarting such attacks by targeting individuals and centers providing martial training to PFI operatives.
State police were also concerned that such attacks could pit different groups of people against each other.
PFI workers went underground
State law enforcers said that soon after the ban was imposed in September, many second-line leaders of the PFI seemed to have gone underground.
They rarely slept in their homes and moved from place to place, communicating only through closed and encrypted mobile phone message groups. Not surprisingly, the NIA found many of its targets absent from their homes at the time of the raids.
The agency has not made any arrests so far. However, it has reportedly seized financial records, mobile phones, computers and bank documents in the raids.
The tribunal will examine the validity of the ban
The NIA was trying to unearth evidence to bolster its case for banning the PFI before a national tribunal set up to examine the validity of the indictment.
In September, the NIA arrested 14 top-level PFI leaders in similar raids. The suspects are still in preventive custody in various jails across the country.