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New Delhi: The infamous Popular Front of India (PFI) was banned by the Centre on Wednesday, along with eight of its affiliates or fronts. The ban came after two rounds of sweeping raids on PFI establishments and leaders across India by two premier investigating agencies, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
While the Opposition cried hoarse, brandishing infringement of fundamental freedoms, those in the know of the matter and part of the security establishment of the country have hailed the step, though with apprehensions that the ban would send PFI activities against the State underground or diversify them into several other yet-not proscribed organisations.
The PFI has been alleged to be involved in cases relating to terror activities, terror funding, terror training and radicalisation of vulnerable persons.
Meanwhile, the PFI is accused to have received over Rs 100 crore from foreign and domestic sources via money laundering operations. Here’s how this money was raised:
Pocket Funding: After the enforcement of Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2020, a large number of NGOs, including the PFI, lost a source of unaccounted foreign funding. This led to the diversification of PFI into other ways of gathering money, the most important being ‘Pocket Funding’ mechanism. ‘Pocket Funding’ refers to small donations, usually in small denominations, which do not appear on the radar of financial institutions and Central investigative agencies.
As part of this modus operandi, small funds are donated and then collected at another central place. This was also the funding pattern, say experts and security observers, of the farmers’ protests against the three farm laws.
Zakat: In Islam, zakat is a religious donation, and part of the duty of devout Muslims for the betterment of the community. PFI, say experts, received money as zakat to evade the prying eyes of agencies, and this was transferred to India from foreign countries via hawala networks.These hawala mechanisms are followed by almost all Islamist jihadist and terrorist organisations, including the PFI, across the world.
Stakes in illegal mining in Jharkhand: According to Vinay Singh, a long-time PFI observer and Senior Research Fellow at the Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation (SPMRF), the PFI has control over almost 25 per cent of the illegal coal and sand mining in Jharkhand’s tribal belt of Santhal Pargana. “From being receiver of funds from PFI’s arms in other states, PFI in Jharkhand has emerged as the financier of PFI in other states,” Singh told Firstpost.
Cattle Smuggling: According to sources in investigative agencies, PFI has its hands in cattle smuggling in India as well.
Fake notes and Narco trade: According to highly placed sources, the PFI has been a legatee of fake Indian currency notes (FICN) notes and narco trade in the country since PFI is related to such terror outfits as Al Qaeda. Terror organisations have long been dealing in fake notes and narco trade to fund terror activities in India. The narco trade has its roots across our western border in Afghanistan.
According to a report in HT from 2020, a home ministry dossier on the PFI has noted that it gets significant funding through its multiple front organisations in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.
Vinay Singh also sounds a caution, especially after the ban. “In the wake of the banning, the PFI is expected to run its activities through several other organisations and it is a challenge for the security establishment to regularly track all these. Also, there are several organisations that have not been banned but are related to the PFI, such as SDPI. Since SDPI is a political outfit, it is a kind of challenge to ban it easily.”
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