The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached 35 immovable properties worth ₹56.56 crore belonging to the banned radical outfit Popular Front of India (PFI) in the name of its various trust, firms and individuals.
According to a statement issued by the central probe agency on Friday, 19 immovable properties worth ₹35.43 crore and 16 immovable properties valued at ₹21.13 crore (a total of 35 immovable properties valued at Rs. 56.56 Crore) were attached.
In its statement, the ED alleged its investigation revealed that PFI office bearers, member,s and cadres were conspiring and raising funds from within India and abroad via banking channels, hawala, donations etc for committing and financing terrorist acts in India.
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‘Illegal funds deposited in 29 bank accounts of PFI’: ED
According to ED, funds raised by PFI in India and abroad through unlawful means were allegedly deposited in 29 bank accounts across the country located in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir and Manipur.
The funds collected through unlawful means and dummy donors by PFI in cash or through bank account qualified as Proceeds of Crime which amounts to Rs. 94 Crore, the ED claimed.
So far 26 members and cadres of PFI have been arrested by ED and 9 Prosecution Complaints have been filed in the period February 2021 to May 2024.
‘Over 13,000 active PFI members in Singapore and Gulf nations’: ED
The Enforcement Directorate in its investigation said that PFI has over 13,000 active members in Singapore and Gulf countries including Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.
The PFI has formed well-defined District Executive Committees (DECs) for the Non-Resident Muslim diaspora living in the Gulf Countries, which was tasked with collection of funds, the agency said.
Each DEC was given target of several crores of rupees for funds collection. The funds which were raised abroad were transferred to India through circuitous banking channels, as well as through underground hawala channels so that their origins could not be traced and thereafter handed over to PFI and its office bearers to finance their terrorist and unlawful activities, the ED added.
According to the ED, the real objective of PFI is to form an organisation for “carrying out an Islamic movement in India through Jihad, though PFI masquerade itself as a social movement.”
