Punjab: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), on Wednesday finally confirmed that they carried out search operations at the business and residential premises of Kudratdeep Singh, Pinjore Royalty Company, Providers Overseas Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and others at Mohali, Ludhiana, Rupnagar, Fatehgarh Sahib and Pathankot in the illegal sand mining case.
They conducted a raid at the house of Bhupinder Singh Honey, the nephew of the Punjab Chief Minister, too. However, his name was not taken by the officials.
The ED on Wednesday recovered more cash during the ongoing raids.
The ED team seized Rs 3.9 crore more from Bhupinder Singh’s residence. With this the ED has recovered Rs 10 crore so far while the raids are still going on.
“We have recovered around Rs 10 crore cash so far. The team has also found a few documents which connect Bhupinder Singh Honey to shell companies,” said a source.
Sources in the ED have claimed that Honey has alleged connections with the sand mafia in Punjab. The ED has recovered a few documents during the raid on Wednesday. A source said that the documents recovered by them have confirmed that Kudratdeep was running two firms and Bhupinder Singh was joint director in them. The firms are basically shell companies but the ED has found a lot of money transactions.
The ED had on Tuesday recovered Rs 6 crore in cash during the raids.
Rs 4 crore was recovered from the house of Bhupinder singh Honey while Rs 2 crore was recovered from the house of one Sandeep Kumar.
On Tuesday, the raids were conducted by the ED at more than ten locations including Honey’s home.
On Wednesday the ED team again started conducting raids in Punjab. The ED officials were tight lipped about it.
As of now they have not shown the arrest of anyone in the case.
The ED case is on the basis of a two-year-old FIR wherein the ED conducted raids at ten different locations.
The Punjab Police had on March 7, 2018, lodged a case against more than ten accused.
The ED initiated a money laundering probe on the basis of this FIR pertaining to illegal sand mining in Punjab.
The FIR has been accessed by IANS which was filed under several sections of the IPC.
The ED found that money was being laundered by the accused and they started probing the matter. The raids started on Tuesday morning.
A source said that the raids at different premises including the residence of Bhupinder Singh Honey at Homeland Heights, went on till late Tuesday evening.
The ED team reached several premises early on Tuesday morning. At Honey’s home no one was allowed to leave or enter the premises. The ED scanned various documents and computers.
During the raid the ED recorded the statements of those who were present in Honey’s house.
A large number of people had gathered outside the house and the local police were called to prevent any untoward incident.
The raids also created a political uproar in poll bound Punjab. The political parties had already accused the Punjab CM many times over illegal mining in his own constituency. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal had tweeted several times regarding the ongoing illegal sand mining. He had tweeted that Punjab CM Channi was not doing anything to stop it.
The police were looking into the matter for more than two years and on the basis of the local police probe the ED initiated its money laundering investigation.
(IANS)
