'Hydra-headed' Popular Front of India's aim is destabilisation: TN Guv

Chennai, May 6

Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi on Friday strongly came out against the Popular Front of India (PFI), terming the Islamic organisation "hydra-headed" and aiming to destabilise India with its several fronts.

He said the PFI has more than 16 fronts/masks of student groups, political parties, human rights organisation and others and condemned parties that back the organisation.

In his remarks at the launch of the book "The Lurking Hydra: South Asia's Terror Travail" by late Lt Gen Subroto Mitra (retd), Ravi claimed the PFI's whole aim is essentially to destalise the country.

Using violence as a political tool is an act of terrorism, he said.

A former intelligence officer and the Centre's interlocutor on Naga peace talks, Ravi alleged that US and British intelligence agencies had instigated the Nagas.

"The British wanted to create an independent nation out of northeast India and upward of Burma. They took the help of the American Baptist Church and Anglican Church's evangelical efforts," Ravi said.

In India, the British and Americans created trouble in the northeastern region, instigating Nagas in Assam, he said, adding that the British wanted to put the northeast with Pakistan and it was opposed by the Nagas.

According to him, the West wanted to create a Christian terriory in northeast India to contain the spread of Chinese Communism and in Afghanistan to contain the Soviet communism, they used the radical Islam.

Ravi also attributed terrorism in India as "instigated, inspired, and abetted by foreign powers and several nations have played bloody games in the country".