Coimbatore: Mohammed Ismail of Popular Front of India (PFI), a radical outfit in Tamilnadu accused the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of targeting Muslims and trying to link social outfits like them with terrorism out of political pressure.
A day after the NIA conducted searches at 20 locations in Tamilnadu and Puducherry, including four offices PFI, the outfit’s State unit president charged that NIA was under pressure from ruling BJP and Sangh Parivar.
PFI was into social services and the educational sector, yet the NIA raided its offices in the state, either to link it with Ramalingam’s killing or the Sri Lankan church blasts. If NIA continued to ‘target’ Muslims, PFI would resort to legal course of action and ‘massive’ agitation, he warned while speaking to reporters.
The searches were being conducted in connection with the murder of 41-year-old Ramalingam, a PMK worker, in Kumbakonam in February last. In a statement, the NIA said a number of devices, including 16 mobile phones, 21 SIM cards, three laptops, nine hard discs, seven memory cards, 118 CDs/DVDs, one tab, seven diaries and two PFI banners were seized during the raids.