The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed the charge sheet in a special court here against 11 PFI activists, who were arrested from Nizamabad in Telangana for allegedly organizing terror training camps and recruiting people for carrying out terror activities.

According to NIA investigations, the accused were running training camps under the guise of Yoga classes or beginner’s course for physical education where the youths were trained to use everyday 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.

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The eleven arrested PFI members have been charged under UAPA for organizing terror training camps and recruitment of persons for terrorist acts. They were accused of 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 and then the NIA took over the investigation and re-registered the case on August 26. The Nizamabad 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 both 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. But one of the accused 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 the mushrooming of sleeper cells in the state.