The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has conducted extensive searches at the houses of three absconding suspects in the case related to the murder of BJP Yuva Morcha member Praveen Nettaru by cadres of the Popular Front of India (PFI) in Karnataka last year, the agency said on June 28.
Three locations were searched in two districts of Karnataka on June 27 as part of NIA’s efforts to hunt down the absconders. The NIA seized several electronic gadgets and documents during the searches at the houses of Abdul Nasir and Abdul Rahaman in Kodagu district and Naushad in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka.
All three are suspected of harbouring the main assailants of Parveen Nettaru at various hideouts across Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, said the NIA. Besides the trio, five other accused are still absconding in the case, which NIA had taken over in August last year.
A total of 21 persons, including the absconders, have so far been charge-sheeted by the NIA under various sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Indian Penal Code and Arms Act in the case that is linked to the killing of Nettaru. Nettaru was hacked to death on July 26, 2022, in Bellare village of Sullia Taluk at Dakshina Kannada district by PFI ‘Killer Squads’ or ‘Service Teams’.
The PFI, which was banned by the Central government in September last year, has been indulging in such targeted ‘hate killings’ with the aim of driving a communal wedge and spreading communal hatred with its ultimate objective of establishing an Islamic Rule in India by 2047. “Efforts to track down the absconding accused are continuing,” said the NIA.
Besides involvement in Nettaru’s murder, the PFI cadres are also accused of involvement in several terrorist acts and the murder of several members of RSS and BJP, including Sanjith (Kerala, November 2021), V-Ramalingam (Tamil Nadu, 2019), Nandu (Kerala, 2021), Abhimanyu (Kerala, 2018), Bibin (Kerala, 2017), Sharath (Kamataka, 2017), R Rudresh (Kamataka, 2016), Praveen Puyari (Karnataka, 2016), and Sasi Kumar (Tamil Nadu, 2016).
The MHA has said that the PFI cadres have carried out criminal activities and brutal murders for the sole objective of “disturbing public peace and tranquillity and creating a reign of terror in the public mind”.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has also mentioned “international linkages of PFI with Global Terrorist Groups”, and that some of the outfit activists have joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and participated in terror activities in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some of these PFI cadres linked to ISIS have been killed in these conflict theatres, and State Police and Central Agencies have arrested some, the PFI has linkages with Jamat-ul-Muyahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a proscribed terrorist organization”.
Recently the grand old party Congress returned to power in the Karnataka assembly elections of 2023. Amid numerous unjustifiable decisions, the party has decided to withdraw the temporary appointments made in the government services by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
With this decision, the wife of slain BJP worker Praveen Nettaru will also lose her job. Nutan Kumari was appointed a group-C post after the death of her husband. Her job was contractual; she was appointed in the office of former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai in the Dakshin Kannada district’s Mangaluru. The BJP government had, on September 22, 2022, issued her appointment letter.
After a huge public outcry, the Congress government under Siddaramiah in Karnataka has clarified that the wife of Praveen Nettaru, Nutan Kumari, will be reappointed. Asianet Suvarna news has reported that the Congress government has taken this decision on ‘Humanitarian grounds’.
