ED Conducts Raids Against PFI-Linked SDPI In Four States

The ED raids are being carried out in four states across the country. According to ED sources, these raids are taking place at nine locations in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, and Rajasthan.

Security personnel during a raid, conducted by the ED, as part of a money laundering investigation against the Social Democratic Party of India in Chennai.

Source : PTI

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is conducting raids on the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), an organization linked to the Popular Front of India (PFI).

The raids by the investigating agency are being carried out in four states across the country. According to ED sources, these raids are taking place at nine locations in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Kerala, and Rajasthan.

A number of premises in Mettupalaiyam, Coimbatore, Arcot and Vellore in Tamil Nadu, Bhilwara and Kota in Rajasthan, Kolkata and Kottayam and Palakkad in Kerala were raided under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), officials said.

The fresh raids on Thursday comes as part of the agency's ongoing money-laundering probe against the SDPI, the political outfit of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI). The ED had carried out the first round of searches in the case in the first week of March and arrested Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) national president M K Faizy.

The ED had claimed before a court while seeking Faizy's remand that there existed an organic relation between the two outfits and that the PFI was carrying out its criminal activities through the political party (SDPI).

The PFI was banned by the central government in September 2022, calling it an unlawful association and for allegedly indulging in terrorist activities. Multi-agency searches by the ED, National Investigation Agency (NIA) and various state police forces preceded the PFI ban.

The SDPI was founded in 2009. It is also registered as a political party with the Election Commission. Seeking Faizy's remand earlier this week, the ED told the court that the PFI and the SDPI were organically linked and the latter was nothing but the political front of the former and was funded and controlled by it.

The agency claimed that it had evidence to state that there was a deep-rooted nexus between the two organisations as there was overlapping membership of their cadres, involvement of PFI office-bearers in the founding of the SDPI and utilisation of each other's assets.