After the Union Home Ministry imposed a ban for five years on the Popular Front of India (PFI), several leaders and cadres of the organisation have gone into hiding.
Sources in the state police said that many of the leaders and cadres who were present in public after the September 22 raids and arrest of senior leaders by the NIA are now not seen in public.
Tamilnadu state president of the PFI, Mohammed Shaik Ansari in a statement after the ban said that the organisation would fight the ban legally. The state leader also termed the ban “illegal and undemocratic”.
While the state president has put a bold face by issuing a statement, almost all the other leaders of the front are not being seen in public.
Sources in the Tamilnadu police that some PFI leaders who were arrested from the state on September 22 were taken to Delhi and most of the second rung leaders fear that they may also be taken to the national capital and hence many of them have gone into hiding.
With the ban coming into effect, the leaders are not certain what the future will be if arrested and hence most of them have not appeared outside.
In the protest held by the Popular Front at the communally sensitive Ukkadam in Coimbatore this morning, almost all the participants were women.