Rauf Shareef, a native of Anchal in Kollam district, facilitated the National Investigation Agency (NIA) proceedings by revealing the secrets of the Popular Front of India’s (PFI) terror training and funding. Information about Shareef, who provided funds for the Hathras riots conspiracy, was received from Siddique Kappan, whom the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Police arrested.
Shareef was the General Secretary of the Campus Front of India (CFI), the student/campus wing of the banned Islamist organisation the PFI. HinduPost reported how Shareef and Kappan were arrested in 2020. Shareef was apprehended while trying to flee Bharat via the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport.
Shareef used to send funds to the PFI through Hawala networks using shell companies in Oman. He pleaded guilty in the case and was recently granted bail. The nationwide raids and arrests (in late 2022) of PFI leaders were based on information obtained when NIA and Directorate of Enforcement (ED) teams interrogated Shareef while he was lodged in Lucknow jail.
Rauf Shareef’s confession is as follows:
‘I joined the PFI in 2013 and joined CFI as a college student in 2015. Between 2018-19, I was the National General Secretary of CFI.
The CFI Office is in the F23 Building, Shaheen Bagh, Delhi. Former president Kannur native A.V. Shoaib rented this building. PFI leader Abdul Rahman lived on the top floor of this building. The PFI Delhi office is in the Shaheen Bagh F30 building next door. I used to visit there regularly.
I got my Chartered Accountant (CA) degree in 2016. In November 2018, I became a General Manager at Raees International Company, Muscat. I used to come to India from time to time.
PFI activists in the Gulf would collect funds from Muslims and send them to India through hawala. Sometimes, money is deposited into organisations’ or individuals’ bank accounts. The PFI Gulf Executive Council coordinates Gulf activities.
Naufal Sharif and Muhammad Sharif of Doha, Muhammad Faisal Bashir and Rameez of Muscat are in charge of fundraising in the Gulf. Kerala and some states have District Executive Councils, which are tasked with collecting funds from Muslims.
Although CFI is a student body, it is run by PFI leaders. Under PFI control, feeder organisations like Rehab Foundation, Green Valley Academy, Advocate Council, National Confederation of Human Rights Organization (NCHRO), Junior Front, National Women’s Front and Hit Squads exist.
(The Popular Front of India (PFI) and its associates or affiliates or fronts are involved in serious offences, including terrorism and its financing, targeted gruesome killings, disregarding the constitutional set-up of the country, disturbing public order, etc., which are prejudicial to the integrity, security and sovereignty of the country, said a Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) Press Release in September 2022 while banning these radical Islamist terrorist outfits.)
Rehab International spends funds collected from foreign countries on behalf of philanthropic activities for PFI activities. Free education at Green Valley Academies would coerce Muslim children into religious extremism. Green Valley students who are involved in PFI activities would claim victimhood and escape if they were caught.
Advocate Council and NCHRO would ensure legal assistance to PFI workers. The junior front worked for children, and the women’s front worked for women. There are also some secret syndicates like the Hit Squads.
Many media people in and outside Thejas’ mouthpiece are members of PFI. (Kappan was an old employee of Thejas News, the PFI’s media arm. In 2020, HinduPost reported how these presstitutes had tried hard to whitewash Kappan and PFI’s terror activities.)
The Hit Squad is the military wing of the Popular Front. Terrorists are trained in martial arts and weapons to carry out attacks. Hit squads are capable of carrying out assassinations, thereby triggering riots on behalf of the PFI.
Those in one branch of the PFI cannot know those in other units. Only top leaders and managers know everything.
PFI also has a social media cell where people associated with the IT sector are members. The task of the social media cell is to defame the country and the central government and spread communal hatred. Social media cells give publicity to atrocities against minorities and Dalits.
PFI also made the killing of a Dalit girl in Hathras a propaganda issue. Earlier, the government suppressed the anti-CAA agitation, a failure of the PFI. So, the team was sent there as an opportunity to inflame the Hathras incident.
(Kappan and other co-conspirators are accused of plotting to instigate disturbances over the controversial Hathras case in Uttar Pradesh, where an SC (Scheduled Caste) Valmiki girl allegedly in a relationship with a GC (General Category) Thakur boy was strangled to death, and later rape charges were levelled at the boy and his relatives. Later, a special court in Hathras convicted one person and acquitted three others of all charges in the 2020 Hathras rape and murder case.)
I deposited Rs.5,000 in Atikur Rahman’s (another terrorist arrested along with Kappan) bank account to go to Hathras. KP Kamal (a PFI Commander and one of the PFI’s top five members) paid money into Kappans’s account. The group’s mission was to stir up some Dalit organisations and create a Dalit upper-caste (general category) riot.
The Supreme Court’s decision to build a temple on the site of the demolished Babri Masjid stirred up Islamist sentiments and helped recruit members to the organisation. Many people joined PFI during the anti-CAA (Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019) agitation. PFI is multiplying in Delhi, UP, Rajasthan, Bihar and Bengal.
The organisation also received more funds. However, the anti-CAA movement ended due to the COVID lockdown and police action, which made us pick up on the Hathras incident.
Following Kappan’s gang moving to Hathras, hit squad members Anshad Badruddin and Firoz Khan were sent there with petrol bombs and weapons. After Kappan and his team were captured, the Hathras mission was abandoned. The PFI plan would have been successful had they advanced, and a riot would have broken out in Hathras.
KP Kamal, also the PFI Delhi Office Manager, dispatches and manages the teams. If you check the mobile data of the hit squads, it will be known that Kamal will send several teams for the same mission. Revealing more secrets would endanger my life.
O. M. A. Salam, P. Koya, E. M. Abdu Rahman, Anees Ahmed, A.M. Islam, K.P. Kamal, M.K. Faizi, Abdul Wahid Seth, Muhammad Yusuf, V.P. Nasruddin and Naufal Sharif are the leaders of PFI. Many of them, including P. Koya, were SIMI officials.
(Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was an organisation of young extremist students that declared Jihad against Bharat, the aim of which was to establish Dar-ul-Islam (the land of Islam) by either forcefully converting everyone to Islam or by violence. It was banned in 2001, shortly after the 9/11 attacks.)
Campus Front’s transactions are paid in cash. Several illegal bank transactions for PFI operations have occurred.’
The confessions of Rauf Sharif and hit squad members Badruddin and Firoz Khan before the NIA solved many PFI mysteries.
