New Delhi, Feb 16 The Delhi High Court on Monday granted bail to Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) President M.K. Faizy, an Islamic scholar and a political observer who served as a Masjid Imam in the 1980s, in a money laundering case lodged by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
A single-judge Bench of Justice Neena Bansal Krishna passed the order granting bail to Faizy alias Moideen Kutty K. The detailed order of the Delhi High Court granting bail is awaited.
Faizy, one of the founders of the SDPI, was arrested on March 3, 2025, at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in New Delhi under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
According to the ED, the SDPI functions as the political front of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) and is financially dependent on it for its operations.
The SDPI claims to be an independent outfit without any connection to the PFI.
The federal anti-money laundering agency, as part of its probe against the PFI in 2022, had linked Faizy with a Kerala-based PFI leader, Abdul Razak BP, who is alleged to have "transferred" Rs two lakh to the SDPI national president as part of the fund-raising activities of his (Razak's) organisation.
Investigators claimed that the SDPI received crores of rupees from the PFI through illegal hawala channels and allegedly funnelled the funds to its units nationwide.
The PFI and its eight affiliates were banned by the Centre in 2022 for fuelling radicalisation and were involved in terror funding.
Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Delhi, SDPI is alleged to be the political front of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI). Before the ban on PFI in 2022, simultaneous raids and enforcement action were conducted against it by multiple agencies, including the NIA and various state police forces.
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.
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