12 national executive members of banned PFI among 19 named in NIA’s fifth chargesheet

BENGALURU: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had submitted a fifth chargesheet before a Special Court in Delhi against 19 people, including 12 of its National Executive Council (NEC) members, who were found to have links with some terror groups.

The NIA officials have seized 37 bank accounts of PFI and 40 bank accounts of the 19 individuals have been frozen after the investigation.

The accused have been charged with conspiring to destabilise the country in the name of organisation and the NIA has also mentioned the source of funding, handlers and weapons supply including how much money was credited into the PFI’s bank accounts in Bengaluru including that of Abdul Kadhar Puttur who was arrested in Bengaluru.

The probe also revealed foreign funding for terror activities. Some terror groups are financing terrorist activities in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Bihar, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh and PFI was providing physical and military training while also attracting youths for training in terror acts, a press release said.

The NIA officials have frozen the bank accounts in Bengaluru, Guwahati, Sundipur (West Bengal), Imphal, Kozhikode, Chennai, Delhi, Jaipur, Hyderabad and other places. The activists were conspiring to divide the country on communal lines, overthrow the existing system of secular and democratic governance in India and replace it with an Islamic Caliphate, along with Shariah/Islamic Law, the chargesheet said.

The PFI members/cadres chargesheeted under various sections of IPC and UA(P)Act have been identified as OMA Salam, E M Abdul Rahiman, Anis Ahmed, Afsar Pasha, V P Nazaruddin, E Abubacker, Prof P Koya, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Abdul Wahid Sait, A S Ismail, advocate Mohd Yusuf, Mohammed Basheer, Shafeer K P, Jaseer K P, Shahid Nasir, Waseem Ahmed, Mohammed Shakif, Muhammed Farooq Ur Rahman and Yasar Arafat @ Yasir Hasan. They were arrested in September 2022 following searches by the NIA at 39 locations, including PFI offices, across the country, the chargesheet said.