A public rally to be held in Bangalore on February 22 — to protest against the quality of politics in Karnataka and organised by the recently-created Popular Front of India (PFI) — has put the security agencies in a tizzy after recent terror investigations revealed that a suspect had participated in a similar rally in 2007. The police have given a go ahead to the rally despite questions being raised by some security agencies on whether the rally should be permitted.The PFI comprises cadres from three outfits — the National Democratic Front (NDF), Kerala, the Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD), the Manitha Neethi Pasarai (MNP), Tamil Nadu. A decision to officially bring together these organisations was taken in November 2006 in a meeting in Kozhikode in Kerala. A rally to formally announce the formation of the PFI was announced on February 16, 2007 in Bangalore during the Empower India Conference. The PFI rally held in 2007 — under the close scrutiny of security agencies — had been projected as an umbrella organisation to fight for the rights of not just the minorities but also Dalits and other marginalised socio-religious communities. While little has been heard of the PFI’s mainstream activities since 2007, investigations that began this January into the background of six youths arrested in north Karnataka, for possibly being part of a terror network, has thrown up a link to the 2007 PFI rally. One of the arrested youths, Mohammed Asif, a final-year medical student at the Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences in Hubli, was found to have participated in the 2007 rally and built contacts with KFD and NDF workers. Following revelation of Asif’s links to the KFD, the Karnataka police began an exercise to see if the organisation’s activities can be restrained through a ban, but has found little evidence of the group’s involvement in violent activities. “Though they were linked to violence in Mangalore in October 2006, along with Hindu right wing groups, there is little evidence for their extremism to warrant a proscription,” a senior state security official said.While the separate organisations within the PFI hold identities as campaigners for the welfare of minorities, they have been viewed in security circles as offshoots of banned fundamentalist organisations like the SIMI and the Al-Umma. The NDF is considered a new version of the SIMI. The KFD — existing largely in coastal Karnataka — has earned the reputation of being linked to the NDF. The MNP is considered an offshoot of the Al Umma in Tamil Nadu.The president of the KFD and the vice-chairman of the PFI K M Shareef, however, labelled the February 22 rally as ‘a people’s march for a new Karnataka’. “The major power mongering political players — the BJP, the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) — have betrayed the peoples’ mandate by forming and breaking governments to accomplish their selfish gains,” Shareef said, adding, “the rally is to create awareness regarding the economic deprivation of the marginalised.” Shareef ruled out the possibility of the KFD or PFI constituents contesting the elections themselves. The rally will see the confluence of three separate rallies from Sirsi, Bidar and Chikamagalur regions of Karnataka.
