ED makes fresh arrest from Tamil Nadu in PFI-SDPI case
New Delhi (PTI): The Enforcement Directorate has arrested a man from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu after fresh round of searches in a money laundering case against the SDPI, the political outfit of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI), official sources said.
Wahidur Rahman Jainullabudeen was taken into custody under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) from Mettupalayam in Coimbatore district on Thursday, the sources said.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) made the arrest after conducting searches at the house of Jainullabudeen, who has been brought to Delhi and is expected to be produced before a special PMLA court on Friday, they said.
Freah raids were launched by the ED on Thursday in Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Kerala.
The federal probe agency carried out the first round of searches in the case in the first week of March and arrested M K Faizy, the national president of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI)
The ED 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 Centre banned the PFI in September 2022, calling it an unlawful association which allegedly indulged in terrorist activities.
Multi-agency searches by the ED, National Investigation Agency (NIA) and various state police forces preceded the PFI ban.
Founded in 2009, the SDPI is registered as a political party with the Election Commission of India.
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.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
