While the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in its notification banning the Popular Front of India (PFI) cites four murder cases of Hindutva activists from Karnataka, all the accused members of PFI in one case were acquitted in 2021.
The notification cites murders of R. Rudresh (2016), Praveen Pujari (2016), Sharath Madiwala (2017), and Praveen Nettaru (2022) in Karnataka, apart from six other murder cases from Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Nine PFI members, including the then Kodagu district secretary of PFI T. A. Haris, arrested for the murder of Praveen Pujari in August, 2016, were all acquitted in the case by the Kodagu district principal sessions court on November 30, 2021. Mr. Pujary was killed near Kushalnagar over tension in the town following a “Sankalpa Yatra” by Hindutva organisations that led to anti-Muslim sloganeering and stone pelting.