Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday came out in support of Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut after his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate and said the message from the "king" is clear that anyone speaking against him would suffer.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Sanjay Raut late on Sunday night in a money laundering case linked to alleged irregularities in the redevelopment of a Mumbai 'chawl'.

"The message of 'king' is clear - anyone who speaks against me will suffer. Efforts are on to break the morale of the opponents and silence the voice of the truth by misusing the government agencies," Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.

"But the dictator should listen - in the end, the 'truth' will win and arrogance will lose," he said, citing reports that Sanjay Raut was in the ED net and was questioned for 16 hours before being arrested by the probe agency.

The Opposition has been accusing the Modi government of misusing the ED and other agencies to target its political opponents.

Top opposition politicians, including Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi along with P Chidambaram and his son and MP Karti, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, also a TMC MP, and Delhi minister Satyendar Jain are among those under the ED's lens for alleged money laundering.

Raut, 60, was arrested after he was brought to the ED's zonal office in south Mumbai's Ballard Estate for questioning.

He was taken into custody at 12:05 am on Monday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as he was not cooperating in the probe, officials claimed.

Opposition leaders in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha protested inside and outside Parliament over his arrest, leading to repeated adjournments.