The National Investigation Agency (NIA) produced 11 PFI activists before a special court here after they were arrested from Nizamabad in Telangana for allegedly organizing terror training camps and recruiting people for carrying out terror activities.
According to the NIA, the accused were running a few training camps under the guise of Yoga classes or beginner’s course for physical education, where the youths were trained to use articles such as knives, sickles and iron rods to kill people by targeting vulnerable body parts such as throat, head or stomach and for committing acts of terror.
The 11 arrested PFI members have been charged under the UAPA for organizing terror training camps and recruiting people for terror activities.
It is said that they were radicalizing gullible Muslim youths and recruiting them through speeches filled with hatred and venom against the Government of India as well as other organizations and individuals.
The Nizamabad Police made the initial arrests and filed an FIR on July 4 this year and then the NIA took over the investigation and re-registered the case on August 26.
The police had claimed that they busted a sleeper cell after a counter intelligence operation and arrested a martial art teacher, Abdul Khader who had already trained 200 youths from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
After interrogating Khader, they arrested three more people. Although most of the arrested PFI members were from Nizamabad, there were two from Jagtial and one each from Adilabad and Karimnagar in Telangana.
One of them also hailed from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. The Telangana unit of BJP had raised a hue and cry and accused the TRS of following the appeasement policy, which led to mushrooming of such cells in the state.