5 PFI activists arrested from Kerala for violent activities during state-wide hartal on September 23

Kottayam/Kollam, September 27

Five PFI activists have been arrested from Kottayam and Kollam districts of Kerala for allegedly engaging in violent activities during the state-wide hartal called by the organisation on September 23 pursuant to nation-wide raids on their offices and arrests of their leaders.

Four activists of the Popular Front of India (PFI) were arrested from Kottayam on Monday for breaking the glass of a bakery and damaging a KSRTC bus, police said.

From Kollam, a PFI activist was arrested on Monday for allegedly ramming into a police motorbike with his two-wheeler in his bid to escape the clutches of the police personnel.

The police were trying to catch him as he was allegedly intimidating and abusing those present along the Kottiyam-Pallimukku stretch of national highway 66 on September 23, they said.

While trying to escape the police, the accused rammed into the police patrolling bike and sped away without stopping.

The two officers on the bike were seriously injured with one of them still hospitalised, police said on Tuesday.

The accused, arrested from Kollam, has been booked for the offence of attempt to murder and remanded to judicial custody.

Masked men and miscreants had gone on a rampage in different parts of Kerala during the dawn-to-dusk hartal called by PFI, under the lens for alleged terror activities, and damaged state-run buses and ambulance, injured policemen and commoners, vandalised shops and threatened the public.

The violent incidents affected normal life in many parts of the southern state.