To cripple funding of PFI, investigators probe a network of manpower companies in Middle East

New Delhi: Investigators suspect that Popular Front of India (PFI) is running a network of manpower supply companies and has found employment for over 30000 people, mainly from Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh - through them in the Gulf countries.

The centre has launched a multi-agency probe crackdown against the PFI and over 100 top functionaries of the outfit have been arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Enforcement Directorate (ED) and police in 15 states in the last week.

Following the crackdown, the external linkages of the PFI, especially with extremists outfits, have come under scanner of the agencies.

Investigators suspect that the PFI collects a part of salary of people employed through its companies every month and their estimates say the outfit is generating funds to tune of 30 lakh Emirati Dirhams from the Gulf countries.

The government is particularly interested in putting a squeeze on the funding of PFI to cripple it financially.

Documents on the PFI funding reveal that sale of magazines, CDs and books is another source of generating funds in the Middle East by the PFI and it also collects a monthly subscription from its members.

Investigators have identified many outfits in the Middle East which are routing money to the PFI from hawala channel as well as normal banking route.

A fraternity forum active in the Middle East and a non-governmental relief organisation operating in Kerala have come under scanner of the agencies in this regard.

Investigators believe that some of the functionaries of the PFI take inspiration from the Muslim Brotherhood, which originated in Egypt and it was noticed that the PFI cadres protested in front of the Egyptian embassy in New Delhi in 2015 when Mohammed Morsi, who was from Muslim Brotherhood and became president of the country after the 2011 revolution, and his followers were given death sentence. Later the death sentence was overturned and a retrial was ordered but during court proceedings in 2019 Morsi died in a court room.

Morsi could remain president for just over a year before a military coup overthrown his govenrment.

Muslim Brotherhood cadres were found to be involved in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. It was founded in 1928 by Hassan al Bana, an Egyptian imam. Ayman al Zawahiri, who took over command of Al Qaeda after killing of Osama bin Laden, also a member of the Brotherhood. Zawahiri was killed a drone strike in July this year.

The Indian agencies noticed that a key PFI functionary held a series of meetings with a Muslim Brotherhood scholar in Qatar. The Brotherhood scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi, is an Egyptian but based in Qatar.

It is also suspected that the PFI functionaries have strong ties with a non-governmental organisation in Turkey too and visited its headquarter in Istanbul in 2018. The Turkish outfit is active many conflict areas.