ABVP men’s killing: Call to ban PFI, feeder outfits intensifies

 Call for banning the Islamist outfit, Popular Front of India (PFI), and its feeder groups like the Campus Front of India, a students’ organization, has intensified following the killing of two ABVP functionaries in Kerala.

The ABVP and BJP in Kerala have demanded an NIA probe into the brutal killing of Vishal Kumar (19), a local ABVP leader of Chengannur in Alappuzha district, and Sachin Gopal (20), a town committee member of the organization in Kannur.  Campus Front activists were behind both the killings, according to the police.

Vishal Kumar, a final-year BSc student, was stabbed to death by a group of Campus Front activists in front of the Christian College in Chengannur on July 17 when he and other ABVP workers were engaged in a programme the outfit had organized to welcome new degree students into the college. Two other ABVP activists received serious injuries in the attack.

Sachin, a diploma student and son of an autorikshaw driver, was attacked by a gang of Campus Front workers at Pallikkunnu in Kannur on July 6 while he and his ABVP colleagues were engaged in a membership campaign at a school. He succumbed to the stab injuries at a Mangalore hospital on Wednesday night.

“What kind of an anti-people and insensitive Government we have here? Isn’t it a Government encouraging extremism? Why is it not taking proper action against the culprits even after four students were brutally attacked – and two of them killed – within a span of two months in two districts of the State?” asked State ABVP secretary Aneesh Kumar in Kannur.

According to doctors, the injuries seen on the bodies of both Vishal and Sachin were of similar nature which indicated that these were inflicted with similar weapons, Aneesh Kumar said. This also indicated that both the attacks were carried out by people who had got similar training, the ABVP leader added.

The charge of Taliban-like brutality was first attributed to the Popular Front (formerly NDF) after its operatives and those of its political wing SDPI chopped off the right hand of college professor TJ Joseph of Muvattupuzha on July 4, 2010 for preparing a test paper in which one particular question blasphemed Prophet Muhammad. The NIA is looking into the case.

On August 7, Nasser Vaniyakkad, an hotelier and a local mosque committee member in Paravur off Kochi, was attacked by a gang of Popular Front men allegedly for campaigning against the outfit which had led to its loss of dominance over the administrative panel of a mosque. Nasser was hacked in the right leg several times. Six PFI men have been arrested in this case.

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