PFI Actively Involved In Recent Violence During Anti-CAA Protests In Uttar Pradesh: DGP OP Singh

Popular Front of India (PFI) was actively involved in the recent violence during protests against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in Lucknow and other districts, said OP Singh, Director General of Uttar Pradesh Police. “Popular Front of India was actively involved in this (recent violence), that is why we have arrested 25 of their members. We have ample proof against them,” he told reporters in Lucknow.

Singh said that the home department has sent its report, seeking a ban on the PFI, to the Centre. The Uttar Pradesh Police sought the ban after PFI’s role was ‘established’ in vandalism in the state during violent protests against the amended citizenship law.

Earlier on Tuesday, Singh said that they had written to the Union Home Ministry, seeking a ban on the PFI after its Uttar Pradesh head, Wasim, and 16 other activists were arrested for allegedly masterminding the violence in the state capital during anti-CAA protests.

Wasim was arrested for allegedly masterminding the violence, police had said last week.

"We have got success in arresting the mastermind of the Lucknow violence. Wasim, Nadeem, and Ashfaq of the PFI have been arrested. While Wasim is the state head, Ashfaq is the treasurer and Nadeem is a member of the PFI," Lucknow SSP Kalanidhi Naithani told reporters here.

Police seized placards, flags, pamphlets, literature, newspaper cuttings, banners and posters for the anti-NRC or CAA protest from them, the SSP said.

During interrogation, Nadeem and Ashfaq told police that they made the strategy for the December 19 protests and publicised it on social media, he had said.

Around 150 people were taken into preventive custody after the UP Police got intelligence inputs about the PFI "planning unrest" in Kairana and Kandhla towns of Shamli.

The PFI was formed in 2006 in Kerala as a successor to the National Democratic Front (NDF). Security agencies have alleged that its leaders have been groomed in the SIMI ideology. 

With PTI Inputs