New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided Thursday at least 26 premises in nine states linked to the Popular Front of India (PFI). Among the premises raided were those of its chairman OM Abdul Salam and Kerala state chief, Nasarudheen Elamarom. The Enforcement Directorate conducted the raids as part of a money laundering probe, official sources said.
The searches are being conducted in Chennai, Tenkasi and Madurai (Tamil Nadu), Bangalore (Karnataka), Darbhanga and Purnea (Bihar), Lucknow and Barabanki (Uttar Pradesh), Aurangabad in Maharashtra, Kolkata and Murshidabad (West Bengal), Jaipur, Shaheen Bagh area in Delhi and in Kochi, Malappuram and Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), they said.
The sources added the action was aimed at collecting evidence in multiple money laundering cases that have been clubbed into one. All the cases are being probed against the PFI and those linked to it.
The premises of Salam and Elamarom, also PFI’s national secretary, are also being covered apart from some other office-bearers of the organisation, they said.
The ED had earlier recorded the statement of Salam, a senior assistant in the Kerala State Electricity Board, and a number of other PFI office- bearers in Delhi. Salam has been posted at the regional audit office of the Kerala electricity board in Manjeri town of Malappuram.
PFI and Salam called the raids a gimmick and an attempt to divert attention from the farmers’ issue.
“Simultaneous raids were carried out by ED at the houses of Popular Front national leaders across India. We believe this to be a politically motivated action from the part of the agency. Such raids usually happen in India whenever the government in power comes under the pressure of popular anger and it wants to divert national attention from it,” a PFI statement said.
“Modi government has always used national agencies against its political opponents and to crush dissent in India to the point that the credibility of these agencies has come under question,” the organisation added.
The central government has come under immense pressure following the farmers’ protests blockading Delhi. The ED raids are nothing but a ‘gimmick’ to divert the issue, the PFI further stated.
The PFI was formed in 2006 in Kerala. It is headquartered in Delhi. The organisation said its activities are ‘transparent’ and out in the public and that they had nothing to hide.
The ED, last month, had said it was investigating ‘financial links’ between the PFI and Bhim Army in its money laundering case.