ED arrests banned PFI-linked SDPI national president M K Faizy

ED nabs SDPI chief M K Faizy

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested SDPI national president M K Faizy under the anti-money laundering law, officials said on Tuesday. The Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), founded in 2009 and headquartered in Delhi, is the political front of the now banned Popular Front of India (PFI).

Faizy was taken into custody on Monday night from the Delhi international airport under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The ED termed SDPI as the “political front” of PFI. The PFI was banned by the Union government in September, 2022, calling it an “unlawful association“. Before the ban came, simultaneous raids and enforcement action were conducted against the PFI by multiple probe agencies, including the ED, NIA and various state police forces.

Faizy is among the founder leaders of the SDPI and was elected its national president in 2018. He is a Islamic scholar and a political observer who served as a Masjid Imam in the 1980s, it said on its portal.

The organisation, according to officials in the investigative agencies, has “strong” influence in various pockets of Kerala and Karnataka and some other south Indian states.

The ED, as part of its probe against the PFI in 2022, had linked Faizy with a Kerala-based PFI leader named Abdul Razak BP who is alleged to have “transferred” Rs.2 lakh to the SDPI national president as part of the fund raising activities of his (Razak’s) organisation. SDPI has a strong base in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh and is involved in many protests against the government including in nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

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