Officers of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted simultaneous searches at 20 locations in Thanjavur, Tiruchi and Karaikal on Thursday, in connection with the murder of PMK functionary V. Ramalingam in Thanjavur in February.
Among the places searched were four offices of the Popular Front of India (PFI) and houses of the accused already arrested and those absconding.
The State police, which had registered a case, had arrested 10 accused. Six are absconding.
Split into teams, the NIA officials, armed with search warrants, carried out the operation with protection provided by the local police. Sources said the NIA conducted a search at the house of one Mohamed Hasan Quthoos at Karaikal and seized a hard disk, laptop and some books, besides unaccounted money. Quthoos was allegedly involved in the murder of Ramalingam. Thereafter, a search was conducted at the PFI district unit office at Karaikal town and it concluded by afternoon.
NIA teams carried out similar searches at the PFI office in Thanjavur town for about 45 minutes. In Tiruchi city, another NIA team searched the premises of the PFI situated in Palakkarai.
The search went on for over eight hours. Gun totting police personnel were deployed in front of the PFI office in Tiruchi city while the NIA officers conducted the search. The searches at the PFI offices comes a day after an NIA team inquired the victim Ramalingam’s son Shyam Sundar at Thiruvidaimaruthur.
Devices seized
The searches led to the seizure of a number of digital devices, including 16 mobile phones, 21 SIM cards, laptops, hard discs, memory cards and CDs/DVDs. Besides, a sword, a sharp-edged knife and ₹2 lakh in cash were recovered from 3 different houses and about 100 incriminating documents were also seized, an NIA press release said.
M. Mohamed Ibrahim, PFI Tiruchi district president, in a statement, alleged that the search was an attempt to tarnish the image of the organisation. The NIA had created an “extraordinary situation” by carrying out a search at the PFI office premises at Tiruchi, he said, and added that the organisation would take legal action against the search.
PFI Tiruchi district secretary Mohamed Siddique told reporters that the NIA team had only conducted a search and no PFI member was questioned.
