• The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) declared the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its front organizations including its student wing- the Campus Front of India (CFI) as an “unlawful association” under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

• PFI is an Indian Muslim political organisation that engages in a radical and exclusivist style of Muslim minority politics. It was formed to counter Hindutva groups.
• It was founded in 2006 with the merger of the Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD) and the National Development Front (NDF) – a controversial organisation established in Kerala a few years after the Babri mosque was demolished in 1992.
• It describes itself “as a non-governmental social organisation whose stated objective is to work for the poor and disadvantaged people in the country and to oppose oppression and exploitation”
• At present, the PFI, which has a strong presence in Kerala and Karnataka, is active in more than 20 Indian states and says its cadre strength is in the “hundreds of thousands”.

• It advocates for Muslim reservations.
• In 2012, the organisation conducted protests against alleged use of the UAPA law to detain innocent citizens.
• PFI has often been in violent clashes with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in parts of Kerala and Karnataka – Activists have been found with lethal weapons, bombs, gunpowder, swords by the authorities.
• The organisation has various wings – National Women’s Front (NWF) and the Campus Front of India (CFI) which have also been banned.
• The Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), founded in 2009, is a registered political party and active in electoral politics — it has a few hundred representatives in local bodies, mostly in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It is regarded as the political wing of PFI.
• Even though the PFI and SDPI have separate leaderships, their cadres overlap and they share a political vision.

UAPA Law

• Originally enacted in 1967, the UAPA was amended to be modelled as an anti-terror law in 2004 and 2008.
• In August 2019, Parliament cleared the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019 to designate individuals as terrorists on certain grounds provided in the Act.
• In order to deal with the terrorism related crimes, it deviates from ordinary legal procedures and creates an exceptional regime where constitutional safeguards of the accused are curtailed.
• Between 2016 and 2019, the period for which UAPA figures have been published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a total of 4,231 FIRs were filed under various sections of the UAPA, of which 112 cases have resulted in convictions.