Former Punjab minister Ashu arrested for corruption
Darpan News Desk IANS, 22 Aug, 2022 12:36 PM
Chandigarh, Aug 22 (IANS) Congress leader and former Punjab Food and Supply Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu on Monday was arrested by a team of the Vigilance Bureau from Ludhiana city in the alleged tender allotment scam.
He is the second minister from the previous government who has been arrested by the AAP government on charges of corruption.
In June, the bureau arrested former minister and Congress leader Sadhu Singh Dharamsot on corruption charges.
Ashu has been named as an accused in the preferential allotment of tenders for labour, cartage, and transportation of foodgrains.
Contractor Telu Ram had, during interrogation, blamed the former minister of involvement in the scam.
The police identified the victim as hakeem Satnam Singh who was attacked at his clinic on Thursday in the limits of Faqirabad police station. A police official said that unknown assailants, whose number could not be ascertained, opened fire on the victim and managed to escape from the scene, the Dawn news report said.
Chief Secretary H.K. Diwedi held an emergency meeting with the District Magistrates and Superintendent of Polices of West and East Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, Hooghly, and Howrah on Thursday evening and took stock of the situation. After that the state government decided to deploy the Army in certain areas. However, NDRF teams have been kept on standby.
According to sources, Amarinder Singh will convene a meeting of leaders close to him in a few days to consider the formation of his new party, which will include all the leaders of the anti-Sidhu faction.
The arrested persons have been identified as Abdul Khalid, Shriram Chaurasia, Zishan Ahmad, Vikas Kesarwani and Krishna Kumar. Inspector (Kareli) Anupam Sharma said the arrested persons had sold SIM cards to law-breakers at high prices after creating fake IDs.
The ex-CM of Punjab recalled that Rawat himself had publicly stated after meeting him that he was satisfied by his government's track record on the 2017 poll promises.
It is learnt that Channi in his first meeting with the Prime Minister after becoming chief minister of Punjab requested that the Centre take back its decision to postpone paddy procurement by 10 days. The Centre has postponed the procurement of paddy by 10 days due to rain in Punjab and Haryana. Earlier the procurement was supposed to start from October 1 but now it will start from October 11.
