Police detain PFI workers for vandalising shops, vehicles | Highlights

#The Udupi city police have booked 11 Popular Front of India (PFI) activists under the charges of staging a road blockade as part of their protest against the raids on the outfit's offices by NIA. The PFI had not obtained prior permission for the protest and they were booked for disrupting normal life with the road blockade, police sources said.

#Senior Nationalist Congress Party leader and former Maharashtra home minister Dilip Walse Patil on Friday said the action by the NIA against the PFI across Maharashtra a day earlier took place as the Union home ministry may have had some inputs.

#The West Bengal president of Popular Front of India has been arrested by Assam Police from Delhi and brought here for production before the court, police said on Friday. The PFI leader, Minarul Sheikh was arrested from the national capital at 12:30 a.m in the intervening night of Thursday and Friday and brought to Guwahati. He has been booked in a Special Operations Unit (SOU) case under various sections of the IPC relating to sedition, criminal conspiracy, promoting enmity and assault to deter public servant from discharge of duty.

#Senior RSS leader Indresh Kumar on Friday termed the NIA-led crackdown on the PFI "appropriate" and took exception to incidents of violence during a hartal called by the Islamic group in Kerala, saying the Sangh too was banned in past but it never took the path of violence to resist.

# One more PFI leader hailing from West Bengal has been arrested from Delhi. So far, the police have arrested 11 PFI leaders, says Hiren Nath, ADGP (Special Branch), Assam Police.

# A petrol bomb was hurled by two persons at the RSS office in Mattannur; police probe underway.

# Police detain five PFI workers for allegedly vandalising shops and vehicles during the protest in Kochi.

# Kerala High Court initiates suo motu case against the leaders of PFI for calling a one-day statewide bandh in Kerala. As per a Kerala HC order, nobody can call for a bandh in the state without permission.

The Court says the police should ensure that adequate measures are put in place to prevent any damage/destruction to public/private property of government and citizens who do not support the call for strike.

# A KSRTC bus was vandalised allegedly by people supporting the one-day bandh called by PFI today, in Companypadi near Aluva.

# One auto-rickshaw and a car were damaged allegedly by people supporting the state-wise bandh called today by the PFI over NIA raids.

# PFI state president C P Mohammed Basheer, national chairman O M A Salam, national secretary Nasaruddin Elamaram, former chairman E Abubacker and others were among those arrested.