Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 19 Jan, 2022 12:21 PM
New Delhi, Jan 19 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday confirmed that it carried out search operations at the business and residential premises of Pinjore Royalty Company, Providers Overseas Consultants Pvt Ltd and others at Mohali, Ludhiana, Rupnagar, Fatehgarh Sahib and Pathankot in connection with an illegal sand mining case.
An ED official said that during the raids, the agency seized incriminating documents pertaining to sand mining, property transactions, cellphones, gold worth over Rs 21 lakh, Rs 10 crore in cash apart from a luxury watch worth Rs 12 lakh.
As per sources, the ED raided the house of Bhupinder Singh Honey, who is the nephew of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, on Tuesday and Wednesday, seizing around Rs 10 crore in cash from his premises.
"The ED has recovered around Rs 10 crore in cash so far. The team has also found few documents which connect Bhupinder Singh Honey with shell companies," said a source.
The sources in ED have claimed that Bhupinder Singh has alleged connection with the sand mafia in Punjab.
The ED recovered a few documents during the raid on Wednesday, which confirmed that a person named Kudratdeep Singh ran two firms in which Bhupinder Singh was the joint director. The firms are basically shell companies and the ED has seized monetary transaction details in connection with them.
On Tuesday, the ED had seized Rs six crore in cash during the raids. Of this, Rs 4 crore was recovered from the house of Bhupinder Singh, while Rs 2 crore was seized from the house of a person named Sandeep Kumar.
On Wednesday, the ED team continued with the raids though the officials were tight-lipped over the search operations.
The ED case is based on a two-year-old FIR filed by the Punjab Police on March 7, 2018, naming more than 10 accused for their alleged involvement in illegal sand mining.
The ED initiated a money laundering probe on the basis of the FIR, which has been accessed by IANS.
The raids have also led to a political debate in poll-bound Punjab, with some factions accusing Chief Minister of being involved in illegal sand mining after the premises of his nephew was raided. The ruling Congress has, however, accused the BJP-led Centre of using the financial probe agency as a tool to score political points.
Amid crisis, the Congress in poll-bound Punjab is all set to welcome an MLA from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) who has resigned from the party. Sidhu has been demanding the replacement of Deol, who had represented former Director General of Police Sumedh Singh Saini in cases related to the 2015 sacrilege and subsequent police firing on protesters.
Chinese frontline troops at the China-India border are getting prepared in logistics for the upcoming winter, with several new measures and facilities revealed for the first time to improve the living and working condition of officers and soldiers, which have further boosted their morale as well as the capability to patrol and execute tasks in the high-altitude region during harsh weather.
Two of his associates, Ashok Tiwari and Ashish Shukla, have also been convicted. Judge Pawan Kumar Rai of a special MP/MLA court in Lucknow held Prajapati guilty of gang rape charges in the case under Sections 482/378/407 of the Indian Penal Code.
Calling for reopening of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor in Pakistan, former Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Wednesday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to personally intervene to "open the proposal for a land swap between India and Pakistan for merger of the holy shrine at Kartarpur Sahib with India in exchange for a suitable chunk of land elsewhere.
Lucknow zone ADG S.N. Sabat, a Director-General level officer, says that the investigation by the SIT into the Kheri incident where 8 people lost their lives is on the right track.
In a bid to provide financial relief to cotton farm labourers, the Punjab Cabinet on Wednesday approved the policy formulated for extending relief to the families of cotton-picking farm labourers affected by the damage caused to the crop by the pink bollworm disease.
