Team News Riveting
Kochi, February 22
The suspected activists of controversial Popular Front of India (PFI) staged demonstrations in various parts of Kerala against the Ahmedabad court verdict awarding capital sentences to terrorists convicted in the serial bomb blasts in Gujarat’s capital.
In the 20 serial explosions that ripped through the city of Ahmedabad on July 26, 2008, 56 people were killed while over 200 were injured. The Court of Special Judge A R Patel on February 8 had convicted 49 accused and acquitted 28 others in the case.
Of them, 38 were awarded death sentences while the remaining 11 were penalised life imprisonment till their death.
The activists staged the demonstration in the pretext of a ban on death sentences. Surprisingly, the CPM-led Left Democratic Front Government in Kerala has so far not taken any action as protest amounts to contempt of court. The demonstrators raised slogans. “This is not a verdict, but mass killings by the administration.” They displayed posters and banners in support while raising the protests right from social media to streets. Similar posters were fixed across the state.
According to Wikipedia, PFI is an extremist Islamic organisation in India that was formed as a successor to National Development Front (NDF) in 2006. It has been often accused of involvement in anti-national and anti-social activities.
In April 2013 a series of raids by the Kerala Police on PFI centres across North Kerala found lethal weapons, foreign currency, human shooting targets, bombs, explosive raw materials, gunpowder, swords, among other things. The Kerala Police had then claimed that the raid revealed the “terror face” of the PFI.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has two days ago asked the Centre to put “a complete ban on the Popular Front of India (PFI) immediately, alleging the Islamist group’s “direct involvement with subversive activities and radicalisation”.
