NIA files chargesheets against 68 PFI cadres in Kerala, TN

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday filed two chargesheets against a total of 68 Popular Front of India (PFI) leaders, cadres and members in two separate cases in Kochi (Kerala) and Chennai (Tamil Nadu). With these, the total number of chargesheets filed by NIA against PFI cadres this month has gone up to four. The first such chargesheet was filed in Jaipur on March 13 and the second in Hyderabad on March 16. The chargesheets filed on Friday in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the two states where PFI is the most active, relate to separate criminal conspiracies hatched by the PFI to create a wedge between people of different communities through the radicalisation of impressionable Muslim youth, providing them with training in handling of weapons, and raising funds for carrying out acts of terror and violence with the ultimate objective of establishing an Islamic Rule in India by 2047, said the NIA statement. Kerala PFI case was registered in September 2022 by the NIA to probe the criminal conspiracy hatched by the PFI and its leaders and cadres to create a wedge and between people of different communities through the radicalisation of impressionable Muslim youth, training them in handling of weapons and raising funds for carrying out acts of terror and violence with the ultimate objective of establishing an Islamic Rule in India by 2047. In addition to the above mentioned criminal conspiracy, the NIA has, in its Kerala chargesheet, also included the connected case of the brutal killing of a Palakkad resident, Sreenivasan, who was hacked to death by armed PFI cadres. NIA investigations had shown some of the accused in the PFI criminal conspiracy case (September 2022) to have been involved in the Sreenivasan killing too, according to an agency spokesperson. The accused in the two chargesheets filed today have been charged under various sections of IPC, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and the Arms Act, 1959. In the Kerala case, r