https://www.cnbctv18.com/business/ed-raids-political-outfit-sdpi-across-india-in-money-laundering-investigation-19569850.htm

The Enforcement Directorate conducted nationwide searches on Thursday as part of a money laundering investigation against the SDPI, the political outfit of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI), official sources said.

The searches come after the federal probe agency arrested Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) national president M K Faizy on March 3 at the Delhi airport. He is currently in ED custody.

The searches were carried out at two locations in Delhi, including the SDPI headquarters in Nizamuddin West, Thiruvananthapuram

and Malappuram in Kerala, Nandyal in Andhra Pradesh, Pakur in Jharkhand, Thane in Maharashtra, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow and Jaipur, the sources said.

The ED had claimed, after the arrest of fifty-five-year-old Faizy, that there was an "organic" relationship between the two outfits and that the PFI was carrying out its criminal activities through the political party (SDPI).

The PFI was banned by the Union government in September 2022, calling it an unlawful association and accusing it of indulging in terrorist activities. Multi-agency searches by the ED, NIA and various state police organisations preceded the PFI ban.

The SDPI was founded in 2009 and is also registered as a political party with the Election Commission of India.

The ED told the court, while seeking Faizy’s remand earlier this week, that PFI and SDPI were "organically" linked and that SDPI was nothing but the "political front" of PFI and was "funded and controlled" by the latter.

It 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 SDPI, and the utilization of each other's assets.

"SDPI is a front organisation of PFI through which PFI has been carrying out its anti-national and criminal activities, even while overtly taking a stand that PFI is a social welfare organisation," the ED had alleged.

However, the SDPI denies such a link and calls itself an independent outfit.

According to officials in the investigative agencies, the organisation has a "strong" influence in various pockets of Kerala, Karnataka and some other southern states.