Old City Dotted By PFI Posters But Its Campus Front Clueless

The Campus Front of India was launched in Delhi last November as the students' wing of the Popular Front of India. Now, while the PFI, the Kerala-based fundamentalist Islamist organisation, seems to be spreading base in Delhi with its posters being spotted on the streets, the CFI claims it has nothing to do with its 'parent organisation'.

The Popular Front's posters spotted around Old Delhi talk of the involvement of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in terror attacks in the country. The movie posters were reportedly distributed all over the country as part of the Popular Front's 'Save India Day' campaign on August 9, with the slogan of 'Fight Fascism, Defeat Terrorism'.

While no PFI office-bearer in the city could be contacted, CFI representatives here claimed they were a "neo-social student's movement which aims to empower the campuses by developing a new generation of activists".

They were also quick to dissociate from the PFI, the frontal organisation that helped them stand on their own.

"Campus Front is an independent organisation, and has nothing to do with PFI now. We have good relations with PFI, but we are not a fundamentalist organisation," said Mohammad Shaheen, a CFI member studying in Delhi University. Shaheen said the group organises rallies and puts up posters as a mark of protest on the campuses of Jawaharlal Nehru University and DU. "We protested at Jantar Mantar against the centralisation of education."

The PFI, with significant presence in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, is largely constituted by the National Development Front.

August 16, 2010