PFI used yoga camps to train recruits: NIA charge sheet

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a charge sheet against 11 accused persons for organizing terror training camps and recruiting people for terror acts by the banned outfit Popular Front of India (PFI). 

Filed before a special court in Hyderabad, the NIA charge sheet has revealed that the accused persons were “radicalizing gullible Muslim youth and recruiting them into the PFI through speeches filled with hatred and venom against the Government of India as well as other organisations and individuals”. 

“Once recruited into the PFI, the Muslim youth were sent to Training Camps organized by the PFI under the cover and guise of Yoga Classes and Physical Education (PE) Beginners Course (BC), where they were trained in the use of everyday articles (knife, sickle and iron rods) to kill a person by attacking vulnerable body parts, such as throat, stomach and head and for the commission of terror acts,” the NIA charge sheet mentioned. 

The case was initially registered on July 4 this year in the Nizamabad district of Telangana and was later re-registered by the NIA on 26 August. The accused persons, namely– Abdul Khader, Abdul Ahad, Shaik Iliyas Ahmed, Abdul Saleem, Shaik Shadullah, Feroz Khan, Mohammad Osman, Syed Yahiya Sameer, Shaik Imran, Mohd Abdul Mubeen, and Mohammad Irfan — have been charge-sheeted under sections 120B, 153(A) of the Indian Penal Code, and sections 17, 18, 18A and 18B of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.