Hyderabad: The Popular Front of India (PFI) in a statement issued on Wednesday called the arrest of PFI activists in Nizamabad a ‘witch hunt’ with no credible proof of any sort of anti-social activity.
“Popular Front of India is a national service-oriented organisation. It fights day and night for the democratic rights of Muslim minorities and oppressed groups in the country. During natural calamities and the Covid-19 pandemic, the organisation conducted cremations irrespective of religion and caste and that represents PFI’s service motto. Our organisation speaks against any policies that are anti-people,” PFI said in the statement.
PFI said that the ‘wrongful’ claims made by the police depict the political pressure that the department is under and this has happened in the past as well. “PFI is regularly blamed for anything that goes wrong in this country. We condemn this proofless witchhunt conducted by the Nizamabad police and will fight this legally in the courts,” the body asserted.
Three more activists of the Popular Front of India (PFI) were arrested by the Nizamabad police on Wednesday and booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.
The arrested persons have been identified as Shaik Shadullah (40), a businessman, Mohammed Imran (22), a worker at a chicken shop, and Mohammed Abdul Mobin (27), a welding worker. All of them are residents of Nizamabad town and are reportedly members of PFI.
Prior to this, another PFI activist named Abdul Khader, who was organizing martial arts training at Autonagar in Nizamabad, was arrested for allegedly spreading hatred three days ago. During searches, police officers found two PFI banners, a white writing board, three sets of loose paper bunches, three hand books, a notebook, some bus and train tickets, a podium and a speaker from his house.
“All the three accused were sitting and planning how to get the other PFI activist who was arrested by the police recently. Shadullah has been associated with the Popular Front of India (PFI) since 2017. The arrested persons were also providing financial assistance to Khadeer. He has so far trained around 200 persons from the two Telugu States in martial arts like Karate and Kung Fu. Khadeer also taught other self-defense techniques and weapons training,” said Nizamabad Commissioner, K R Nagaraj.
Shadullah reportedly told the police that the main motive of the PFI is to train Muslim youth for confronting those from the other communities whenever required. All of them are preparing to undertake sabotage activities in the country, the commissioner added.
The Nizamabad police had registered a case against around 200 persons who allegedly participated in the training camps run by Khadeer of Nizamabad in the last year. Sources said the police teams are making efforts to nab several persons who had attended the PFI camp.
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