As a united Opposition mounts pressure on the Narendra Modi government in the PNB scam, the Centre on Thursday rebuffed all allegations and blamed the previous Congress-led UPA government for allowing diamond trader Nirav Modi to loot public cash.

“Whatever is coming out is the result of the previous UPA government… This all happened during their tenure but action will certainly be taken,” Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in Shillong.

As the massive $1.8 billion fraud was unearthed, opposition leaders including Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor Arvind Kejriwal among others blamed Modi for letting the billionaire jewellery designer escape the country.

Meanwhile, a day after the scam was exposed in a Punjab National Bank (PNB) branch, the Enforcement Directorate on Thursday launched a nationwide raid on the offices, showrooms and workshops of Modi.

ED teams carried out simultaneous raids on Modi’s offices, showrooms and diamond workshops in Mumbai, Surat (Gujarat) and New Delhi.

ED officials landed at Firestar Diamond Pvt Ltd. head office in Bharat Diamond Bourse, in Bandra Kurla Complex, Modi’s private office at Kohinoor City in Kurla West, his showroom and boutique at Itts House in Fort in south Mumbai and a workshop in Peninsula Business Park in Lower Parel.

In Gujarat, six diamond workshops were raided in Surat SEZ at Sachin town and an office in Belgium Towers on Ring Road, the hub of diamond jewellery trade.

Two diamond jewellery boutiques of Modi in New Delhi – in Chanakyapuri and Defence Colony – were also raided.

The multi-pronged action came a day after PNB admitted to unearthing a fraud of Rs.11,515 crore involving Modi’s companies and certain other accounts with the bank’s flagship branch (Brady House) in Mumbai and its second largest lending window in India.

At least 10 bank employees have been suspended but it is not clear whether anybody from the crucial PNB Credit Approval Committee or its Board of Directors figure among them.

It followed a complaint lodged by PNB on January 29 pertaining to an alleged cheating case of Rs 280 crore perpetrated by these four in 2011.