ED conducts fresh searches in case against SDPI

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted fresh searches in multiple states on Thursday as part of its ongoing money-laundering probe against the SDPI, the political outfit of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI), official sources said. 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), they said.

The federal probe agency 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 Centre 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.