New Delhi: After the Centre imposed a ban on Islamic terror outfit PFI on Tuesday, both the state and central police forces have been on high alert to maintain the law and order situation in the country. According to reports, additional police forces have been deployed in sensitive areas so that immediate action can be taken in case of any untoward incident.
“We are on alert mode. We are ready to handle any situation. North East district has been put under active Yellow scheme, Orange scheme and Red scheme. Today, an exercise was conducted in North East district to check the effectiveness of the Yellow Scheme which is meant to deal with any exigency in the district,” said Delhi Police DCP Sanjay Kumar.
Amid speculations, various social media accounts of PFI and its students’ wing CFI (Campus Front of India) have been changed their profile names into ‘Intifada’. The official Twitter account of Popular Front of India (PFI) has been withheld in India by the social media platform “in response to a legal demand”, a day after the Centre banned the outfit under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for “terror links”. The government had yesterday ordered the blocking of all the social media traces of the banned outfit, including its Twitter, YouTube channels, Instagram, and Facebook accounts.
‘Intifada’ means a series of riots and violence launched by Jihadis against a government or rule. PFI renaming its social media profile as ‘Intifada’ has sparked speculations that the banned terrorist group is now preparing for widespread violence and riots across the country. PFI Kerala state unit had called for a state-wide hartal on September 23 against raids on the outfit and arrests of its leaders. During the hartal, there was widespread violence across the state. In multiple incidents, Palestinian-model stone pelting and petrol bomb explosions were reported from the state.
What is Intifada?
According to Wikipedia, an intifada (Arabic: انتفاضة intifāḍah) is a rebellion or uprising, or a resistance movement. It is a key concept in contemporary Arabic usage referring to a legitimate uprising against oppression.
The concept intifada was first utilized in modern times in 1952 within the Kingdom of Iraq, when socialist and communist parties took to the streets to protest the Hashemite monarchy, with inspiration of the 1952 Egyptian Revolution.
The concept was adopted in Western Sahara, with the gradual withdrawal of Spanish forces in the 1970s as the Zemla Intifada, but was essentially rooted into the Western Sahara conflict with the First Sahrawi Intifada – protests by Sahrawi activists in the Western Sahara, south of Morocco (1999–2004), Independence Intifada (Western Sahara) or Second Sahrawi Intifada and finally the Gdeim Izik protests in 2011.
In the Palestinian context, the word refers to attempts to “shake off” the ‘Israeli occupation’ of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the First and Second Intifadas, where it was originally chosen to connote “aggressive nonviolent resistance”, a meaning it bore among Palestinian students in struggles in the 1980s and which they adopted as less confrontational than terms in earlier militant rhetoric since it bore no nuance of violence
Here’s a list of events named Intifada
- Iraqi Intifada, a series of strikes and riots in Iraq in 1952, aimed against the Hashemite monarchy rule
- October Revolution, a series of strikes, riots, and demonstrations in Sudan, that ended with the dissolution of the Abbud military regime and the beginning of second civilian rule in 1964
- March Intifada, a leftist uprising against the British colonial presence in Bahrain in March 1965
- Zemla Intifada, against Spanish colonial rule in then Spanish Sahara, in June 1970
- In Lebanese internal conflicts:
February 6 Intifada (1984), during the Lebanese Civil War
Cedar Revolution or “Intifada of Independence”, the events in Lebanon after Rafic Hariri’s 2005 assassination - In the Israeli–Palestine conflict:
First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation lasting from December 1987 to 1993
Second Intifada or the Al-Aqsa Intifada, a period of intensified Israeli-Palestinian violence, which began in late September 2000 and ended around 2005
2014 Jerusalem unrest, a series of violent acts and attacks in Jerusalem in 2014 sometimes referred to as “Intifada” - Israeli–Palestinian conflict (2015) – 2015 escalation in Israeli–Palestinian conflict, sometimes referred to as “Al-Quds Intifada” or “Jerusalem Intifada” or “Knife Intifada”
- 1990s uprising in Bahrain, an uprising demanding a return to democratic rule, also known as the “1990s Intifada”
- 1991 Iraqi uprisings, an armed uprising against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, also known as “Iraqi Intifada of 1991”
- In the Western Sahara conflict:
First Sahrawi Intifada, protests by Sahrawi activists in the Western Sahara, south of Morocco (1999–2004)
Independence Intifada (Western Sahara) or Second Sahrawi Intifada, demonstrations and riots in Western Sahara, south of Morocco, beginning in May 2005
Gdeim Izik protests, also referred as Third Sahrawi Intifada or simply Third Inifada - 2005 French riots often referred as “French Intifada”
- Arab Spring, a revolutionary wave which began on 18 December 2010 in Tunisia, sometimes referred to as “Intifada”:
- Tunisian Revolution, or Tunisian Intifada
- 2011 Yemeni Revolution, or Yemeni Intifada
- Egyptian Revolution of 2011, or Egyptian Intifada
- 2011–2013 Sudanese protests, or Sudanese Intifada
- 2018–19 Arab protests
- 2019–20 Lebanese protests, nicknamed the Tax Intifada
- October 2019 Iraqi protests, nicknamed Iraqi Intifada
