• NET Web Desk

The West Bengal president of Popular Front of India (PFI) – Minarul Sheikh, has been apprehended by Assam Police from Delhi and brought here for production before the court.

Sheikh was arrested from the national capital at 12:30 AM in the intervening night of Thursday and Friday and brought to Guwahati.

Meanwhile, the PFI leader has been charged with sedition, criminal conspiracy, encouraging enmity, and assault with the intent to obstruct the performance of official duties in a Special Operations Unit (SOU) case.

Another PFI activist – Bazrul Karim was arrested from Assam’s Karimganj on Thursday and brought here late at night.

Karim is a member of the state executive committee and the general secretary of PFI’s Barak valley district committee. With Sheikh’s arrest 11 PFI members have been arrested by Assam police.

Nine of them were remanded to police custody for five days on Thursday, which saw a massive crackdown on the radical Islamic outfit by the National Investigation Agency in 15 states simultaneously for allegedly supporting terror activities in the country.

“They were indulging in whipping up communal passion and sentiment of the religious minority by criticizing every policy of the government with communal overtones with a view to terming these actions as attacks on the Muslim community,” the statement further reads.

The activists had been extensively using the cyberspace to incite people by taking up issues and orders of courts outside the state, the statement claimed.

The activists were also allegedly involved in organizing protests against the issues in “communally sensitive” areas of Assam’s Karimganj, Barpeta, Baksa, Kamrup (Rural), Goalpara and Kamrup (Metro) districts, according to the statement.