PFI student wing member held in Kerala

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested a member of the PFI's student wing, Rauf Sharif, after he was apprehended by authorities at the Thiruvananthapuram airport in Kerala, official sources said on

Sunday.

They said Sharif has been placed under arrest under sections of the Prevention of the Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Saturday and a Kerala court has sent him to judicial custody. The ED is expected to move for his custodial remand on

Monday.

Sources said Sharif, reported to be the general secretary of the PFI's student wing-- campus front of India-- was "evading" ED summons in connection with a criminal money laundering probe being conducted against the Kerala-based Islamic organisation Popular Front of India (PFI).

The ED, sources said, had got notified a look out circular against Sharif after he allegedly skipped multiple summons issued by the ED under the PMLA.

Following this circular, they said, he was intercepted by authorities at the Thiruvananthapuram airport on Saturday following which the ED was alerted and the central probe agency picked him

up.

Sharif, they said, was planning to take a flight to a foreign destination from the airport.

The ED is probing Sharif's role with regard to some suspect monetary remittances received by him in the past and it had recovered "incriminating" documents linked to him during the recent country-wide raids it conducted against the PFI, its chairman O M Abdul Salam, Kerala state chief NasarudheenElamarom and others.

The PFI, formed in 2006 in Kerala and headquartered in Delhi, had called the raids a gimmick and an attempt to divert attention from the farmers' issue. Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh Police said on Sunday that it would seek custody of Popular Front of India's student wing leader Rauf Shareef, arrested in Kerala by the Enforcement Directorate, in connection with a case of funding and stirring up protests after the assault and death of a young woman in Hathras.

"Rauf Shareef is wanted in the Hathras case and a team will be sent to bring him here after the ED (Enforcement Directorate) completes its work," UP's Additional Director General of Police (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar

told.