Popular Front of India (PFI) state committee member Yahiya Thangal was taken into custody by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) from his house at Perumbilavu in a pre-dawn raid on Thursday.
The raid was conducted with strong police security at 3 a.m., and seems to be part of a larger nation-wide operation targeting PFI activities. Both PFI and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) activists took out a protest rally against the raid.
Also read: NIA, ED raids offices, homes of PFI leaders across Kerala
Calling the raid an act of state-sponsored terrorism, activists alleged that the attempt was to destabilise the PFI in the country.
The police lathicharged the protesting PFI-SDPI activists, and a few of them suffered minor injuries.
The NIA-ED team also conducted a raid at the PFI-SDPI office at Chavakkad at 4 a.m. on Thursday. The raid lasted for almost two hours. Nobody was taken into custody. There was a PFI protest rally against the raid in Chavakkad as well.
