The enforcement agencies are probing the alleged links of the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI) with the extremist elements in Turkey, and the others who extended financial support to the outfit from Qatar to carry out its activities in India.
“In search of funding for their organisation, some PFI members had earlier travelled to Qatar and met certain Turkish nationals... there are also reports that its national executive council members E.M. Rahiman and P. Koya were allegedly hosted in Istanbul by an al-Qaeda linked charity organisation,” said an agency official.
The official said several persons linked to the PFI had also joined the ISIS in the past. In a case later taken over by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the Delhi Police Special Cell had arrested Mohammed Ismail Mohideen, a resident of Kannur in Kerala, along with another person after he was deported by the Turkish authorities in July 2017.
