NIA raids house of alleged PFI associate in Karimnagar

KARIMNAGAR: The officials of the National Investigative Agency (NIA) carried out searches at the residence of one Tafreez Khan, who was allegedly having links with the banned extremist Islamic organization, the Popular Front of India (PFI), at Hussainpura under the limits of III-town police station in Karimnagar on Thursday.

However, Tafreez Khan was not at home. The searches started at 4 am with the collaboration of the district police following a tip-off about his alleged association with the PFI terror activities. They reportedly quizzed the family members of Khan, who left Dubai six months ago for employment.

In the last six months, NIA conducted searches three times at various places in Karimnagar, Jagtial and Korutla districts suspecting that PFI was recruiting the youth and training them in terror activities.

Last year also, the officials raided a medical shop in Jagtial and sieged digital equipment, and documents along with '8.3 lakh in cash. Two years ago, two persons, Mohammad Irfan from Hussainpura of Karimnagar and Abdul Saleem from Jagtial, were arrested and some important documents and a diary from their houses were seized by the NIA.

It is to be noted here that in 2000, April, a major terrorist encounter took place in Jagtial, in which police gunned down the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Azam Ghauri.
Later, in 2002, the police encountered Azeez Ahmed, who was the incharge of LeT of the South India group at Rekurthi Nagar who took shelter in Karimnagar to assassinate the then union minister Ch. Vidhya Sagar Rao and Chinna Jiyyar Swami during their visit to Jagtial for a spiritual programme.

In the wake of the NIA raids in the heart of Karimnagar city, the police and intelligence departments of the erstwhile Karimnagar became alert and stepped up vigil on anti-social activities to prevent any untoward incidents in the area.