Special court grants custody of 11 PFI activists to NIA till Sep 30

A special court granted the National Investigation Agency the custody of 11 Popular Front of India (PFI) activists, who were arrested on September 22

A special court here on Saturday granted the National Investigation Agency the custody of 11 Popular Front of India (PFI) activists, who were arrested on September 22.

The NIA special court granted the custody till September 30.

The accused, who were taken to the court, raised slogans against the probe agency.

However, a lawyer representing some of the accused said the court asked them to avoid sloganeering as it was ready to hear them.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has raised serious allegations against the PFI and its arrested leaders, and claimed that the seized documents during the raids contain highly incriminating materials targeting prominent leaders of a particular community.

In a remand report submitted before the court seeking custody of 10 accused in a case registered here, the agency also alleged that the radical Islamist outfit encouraged youths to join terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Islamic State (IS) and Al-Qaida.

In near simultaneous raids across the country, a multi-agency operation spearheaded by the NIA on September 22 led to the arrest of 106 activists of the Popular Front of India in 11 states for allegedly supporting terror activities in the country, officials had said.

The maximum number of arrests were made in Kerala (22) followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka (20 each), Tamil Nadu (10), Assam (9), Uttar Pradesh (8), Andhra Pradesh (5), Madhya Pradesh (4), Puducherry and Delhi (3 each) and Rajasthan (2).