25 PFI members, leaders charged under UAPA for seeking to establish Islamic Caliphate in India

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A Delhi court on Friday (June 5, 2026) ordered the framing of charges against 25 people associated with the banned Popular Front of India (PFI), including its chairman, holding that the investigation so far has disclosed a “grave suspicion” of a conspiracy to overthrow India’s secular democratic government and establish an Islamic caliphate governed by Sharia law by 2047.

Additional Sessions Judge Prashant Sharma of the Patiala House Courts directed that charges be framed under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) against the accused including PFI chairman O.M.A. Salam, vice-chairman E.M. Abdul Rahiman, general secretary Anis Ahmed, founding chairman E. Abubacker, founding PFI National Executive Council (NEC) member P. Koya, NEC member Mohammed Ali Jinnah and several other national and State-level functionaries. Similar charges were framed on the PFI as an organisation.

“Considered as a whole, the material on record raises grave suspicion that the accused, acting through and on behalf of the Popular Front of India and its National Executive Council (NEC), agreed and acted in furtherance of a single conspiracy to overthrow the secular democratic Government of India and to establish an Islamic Caliphate under Sharia law in India by or before the year 2047 through an armed struggle against the State,” the orders reads.

The judge noted that the alleged conspiracy operated at multiple levels, with different accused assigned specific roles. According to the order, some members were involved in strategic decision-making at the NEC level, while others handled State-level execution, recruitment, arms training, terror financing and support activities linked to the Islamic State (ISIS).

The court referred to several meetings, training programmes and organisational activities relied upon by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to est