PFI plotted to assassinate Modi: ED remand note

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New Delhi, September 24

The Popular Front of India (PFI) conspired to assassinate PM Modi during his visit to Patna on July 12, the ED has said in its remand note against PFI member Shafeeque Payeth, who was arrested in Kerala. Several blasts had occurred during the PM’s poll rally in Patna in October 2013. The police had blamed the Indian Mujahideen terrorists for these.

The NIA’s pan-India crackdown on the PFI in 15 states was code-named “Operation Octopus”, agency sources said, adding the radical outfit “concealed” funds it received from its members abroad. The NIA arrested over 106 PFI members in multiple raids spread across several states on September 22.

The sources said the raids were conducted in connection with five cases registered by the NIA following “continued inputs and evidence” that PFI leaders and cadres were involved in funding terrorist activities, organising training camps and radicalising people to join banned organisations.

ED officials said certain PFI members based abroad had been sending funds to their NRI accounts in India and then transferring these to the leaders of the outfit to bypass FCRA rules.

NIA raids under ‘Op Octopus’

• NIA’s pan-India crackdown on PFI in 15 states was code-named ‘Operation Octopus’
• Agency said PFI “concealed” funds it received from its members abroad
• It claimed PFI leaders and cadres involved in funding terrorist activities and radicalising youth