A joint team of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Enforcement Directorate (ED), and state police forces arrested over 100 leaders of the Islamist organization Popular Front of India (PFI), on September 22, 2022, during raids across 10 states. As per reports, the raids were conducted at the premises of the PFI leaders who are “involved in terror funding, organizing training camps, and ‘radicalizing’ people to join proscribed organizations”. The raids were conducted in Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and many other states.

As per the statement issued by the PFI:

We strongly protest the “fascist” regime’s moves to use agencies to silence dissenting voices. The raids are taking place at the homes of its national, state, and local leaders. The state committee office is also being raided.

Islamist organization PFI’s name has surfaced a lot in recent times for inciting violence in various parts of India. In July 2022, in a charge sheet filed by the ED in the Prevention of Money Laundering (PMLA) Act court, it was stated that the investigation finds the involvement of the PFI in funding terror activities across India, including funding the anti-CAA protests and inciting the anti-Hindu violence in the Delhi in February 2020 by using social media. 53 people lost their lives in the 2020 Delhi riots.

In December 2020, PFI’s National Youth wing chief K A Rauf Sharif was arrested in the money laundering case linked to the February 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi riots. In the charge sheet filed by the ED in the PMLA court in July 2022, it was said that Sherif was also linked in the Hathras conspiracy case and had obtained funds for supporting terror activities from China. In the statement filed by the ED, it was said that Rauf received rupees one crore from China in the guise of mask trading.

The NIA in September 2022 said that investigations have revealed that active members of the PFI and its political wing Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) had planned and committed the murder of Hindu youth named Praveen Nettaru on July 26, 2022, in Dakshin Kannada district of Karnataka. The murder was done as part of a larger conspiracy to strike terror amongst the Hindu community of the state. In a sting operation done in 2017, Zainaba, the head of the PFI’s women wing Sathya Sarani, was seen accepting the fact that the organization has carried out massive conversions of non-Muslim girls to Islam in Kerala.