Maha: PFI activists detained while protesting in Pune against Thursday's NIA action

More than 35 members of the Popular Front of India were detained on Friday while protesting outside the Pune district collectorate against nationwide raids on the outfit by the National Investigation Agency a day earlier.

Senior Inspector Pratap Mankar of Bundgarden police station said 35-40 PFI activists were detained as they did not have permission from authorities to hold a protest.

In a massive crackdown on the PFI, multi-agency teams spearheaded by the NIA had, on Thursday, arrested 106 leaders and activists of the radical Islamic outfit in near simultaneous raids in 15 states for allegedly supporting terror activities in the country.

Officials has said the raids by the National Investigation Agency(NIA), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the police forces of the states concerned were spread across 93 locations in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa, West Bengal, Bihar and Manipur.

Maharashtra and Karnataka accounted for 20 arrests each, Tamil Nadu (10), Assam (9), Uttar Pradesh (8), Andhra Pradesh (5), Madhya Pradesh (4), Puducherry and Delhi (3 each) and Rajasthan (2), they had said on Thursday.

The PFI, formed in 2006, claims to strive for a neo-social movement ostensibly for the empowerment of marginalised sections of India, and is often accused by law enforcement agencies of promoting radical Islam.