Twitter on Thursday withheld the official account of Popular Front of India, a day after the outfit was banned by the Indian government.
Twitter said that the account has been withheld in India “in response to a legal demand”. The outfit’s accounts on Facebook and Instagram were no longer available as well.
The Popular Front of India, along with its associates was banned for five years by the government under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act on Wednesday.
A government notification alleged that the Muslim organisation along with its eight affiliates have been involved in “violent terrorist activities” and intended to create a reign of terror in the country, endangering security and public order.
It also claimed that some founding members of the outfit are leaders of the Students Islamic Movement of India outfit and have links with the terror group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh. Both organisations are banned in India.
The Popular Front of India was created in 2007 through the merger of three Muslim organisations in southern India. It describes itself as an organisation that works towards “the achievement of socio-economic, cultural and political empowerment of the deprived and the downtrodden and the nation at large”.
On Wednesday evening, the general secretary of the Kerala unit of the Popular Front of India, Abdul Sattar, said that the organisation has been dissolved.
Sattar told reporters that being law-abiding citizens of the country, officials of the Popular Front of India have decided to accept the ban.
However, the president of the Tamil Nadu Popular Front of India unit, Mohamed Shaik Ansari, had said that the organisation would challenge the ban in court.
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