Ahmedabad: The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has detained 17 people for their alleged links with the Popular Front of India (PFI), the group often accused of being linked to radical Islam, an official said on Tuesday.
The ATS clarified that raids in Gujarat were conducted solely by it and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) was not involved as earlier believed.
The ATS picked up 17 persons from Ahmedabad, Surat, Navsari and Banaskantha districts for questioning, the senior ATS official said.
“We suspect that they might have been connected with PFI and its activities. Though the NIA is also conducting raids across the country on similar lines, the national agency was not involved in our operation,” he said.
The official said the PFI is not overtly present in Gujarat but its political wing, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), is active in the state and had opened its office in Ahmedabad a few months back.
“Some of the persons detained for questioning are members of SDPI. All the men are currently in the ATS custody,” he said, adding that the NIA can step in and conduct questioning if it wants to.
More than 170 people allegedly linked with the PFI were detained or arrested in raids across seven states on Tuesday, five days after a similar pan-India crackdown against the group often accused of being linked to radical Islam.
In a massive crackdown on the PFI, multi-agency teams spearheaded by the NIA arrested 106 leaders and activists of the radical Islamic outfit on September 22 in near-simultaneous raids in 15 states for allegedly supporting terror activities in the country.
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