Pune: Many media reports on Saturday claimed that ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans were heard outside the District Collector’s office in Maharashtra’s Pune City on Friday where Popular Front of India (PFI) cadres had gathered.
The PFI members were protesting against the massive crackdown on the organisation by multiple agencies led by National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday across 15 states.
ANI reported that due to high ambience noise in the original video feed, some parts of slogans were faint. Information about slogans was further corroborated by reporters at the spot.
Reacting to the sloganeering incident, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who is also the state Home Minister, said that stringent action will be taken. “We will take stringent action against any person raising Pakistan Zindabad slogans in Maharashtra,” he said.
Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Nitesh Rane took to Twitter and warned those raising such slogans. He also sought a ban on PFI.
Fact check
As per a fact check done by News Laundry, no such slogans were raised. It reported that ‘Popular Front zindabad slogans’ were raised and no pro-Pakistan slogans were shouted.
It quoted Bund Garden senior police inspector, Pratap Mankar as saying, ‘no pro-Pakistan slogans were raised and their slogans were Popular Front zindabad’.
A few of the protesters who were present at the spot also said that they did not listen to any pro-Pakistan slogan and many of them were raising slogans in favour of the Popular Front.
Multiple raids against PFI
On September 22, joint teams of the NIA, Enforcement Directorate (ED), and police conducted multiple raids across 15 states of the country against PFI and arrested over 106 members.
The largest-ever crackdown that was conducted against the PFI members spread across 15 states was code-named “Operation Octopus,” sources said on Saturday.
The searches were conducted in connection with five cases registered by the NIA following “continued inputs and evidence” that the PFI leaders and cadres were involved in the funding of terrorism and terrorist activities, organising training camps for providing armed training and radicalising people to join banned organisations.
With inputs from ANI