PFI Ban News: Before the Popular Front of India was banned, the people who had been arrested by security agencies for being associated with this radical organization included government employees working in positions like professor, librarian, clerk. PFI president OMA Salam, who was an employee in the Kerala government, was also arrested. He was suspended in 2020. Apart from this, National Vice President EM Abdur Rahman is a retired librarian at Cochin University. National Secretary VP Nazaruddin is a former clerk of the Jamaat-e-Islami-Hind mouthpiece Madhyam. One such member of the National Executive Council is P Koya, a former employee of a private company in Qatar. He later worked as a lecturer in a government college in Kozhikode.

The two PFI members who were arrested from Karnataka, Abdul Wahit Sait (National Executive Council Member) and Anees Ahmed (National General Secretary) have been technical experts. Sait, a founding member of PFI, belongs to an affluent Muslim family and lives in Bengaluru. Sait runs Tally, a company dealing in solutions for ERP and other business software. Anees Ahmed worked as the World Technical Manager at Ericsson in Bengaluru for six months. He is quite active on social media and news channels and keeps commenting on current issues including the policies of the central government.

OMA Salam is an employee of Kerala State Electricity Board. He was suspended on 14 December 2020 due to his role as the President of PFI. A case had been registered against Salam in Malappuram. He is also associated with Rehab India Foundation. It was also banned on Wednesday. He was the state secretary of the NDF in 2000 and was associated with the PFI since 2007.

EM Abdur Rahman, a resident of Ernakulam, joined SIMI in the 1970s and later became its All India President. He was the mastermind of the formation of organizations of the NDF and later PFI such as Campus Front of India and Confederation of Human Rights Organisation. Rahiman is a member of the Direct Board of Students Islamic Trust, New Delhi.

Calicut E Abubakar was the Kerala President of SIMI from 1982 to 1984. He is also the founding chairman of SDPI and a founding member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, besides being the founding chairman of the NDF and Rehab India Foundation. Apart from being the managing editor of Thejas daily newspaper, he has also been the editor of India Next Hindi magazine.

P Koya was also the National General Secretary of PFI Front NCHRO. He was an active SIMI activist during 1978-79. Nazaruddin started as a teacher at MES College in Aluva and Calicut Orphanage. Later worked as clerical staff for JEIH’s mouthpiece Madhyamma Daily. He contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from Malappuram as an SDPI candidate.

In West Bengal, PFI State President Minarul Sheikh is known to focus on activities of PFI in Murshidabad, Malda and Kolkata. He holds MA and PhD in History from Aligarh Muslim University. He runs coaching classes. Rajasthan PFI State President Mohammad Asif first joined the Campus Front of India during his graduation.

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