Punjab minister Sanjeev Arora in Netherlands, ED raids his properties; 2nd AAP leader to face action in three days

The ED teams also carried out searches at the premises of Hemanth Sood, who runs a financial investment firm named Findoc Finvest Private Ltd., in Ludhiana and that of Jalandhar-based businessman Chandra Shekhar Aggarwal.

Arora, a businessman and an Aam Aadmi Party leader, is in Amsterdam on an official trip to seek investment for Punjab. The 62-year-old, posted a message on X, saying he will cooperate with the probe. “Good Morning! An action by the Enforcement Directorate took place at my premises. As a responsible citizen, I will fully cooperate with the agencies and I am confident that the truth will prevail,” Arora, the Punjab Minister for Industry and Commerce, said.

ED officials conducting raid at Arora’s residence in Gurdev Nagar, Ludhiana, on Friday. (Express photo/Gurmeet Singh)

This is the second time that Ludhiana West MLA has been raided by the ED. Earlier, in 2024, the ED had had conducted searches at his premises in a money laundering case linked to alleged misuse of industrial land for residential projects. At the time, Arora was a Rajya Sabha member.

The latest action against Arora comes two days after the ED raided AAP’s Rajya Sabha member Ashok Kumar Mittal, his family and educational institutions run by them in Punjab and Haryana as part of a FEMA case. The raids at Mittal’s residence came days after he was named AAP’s deputy leader in Rajya Sabha.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann condemned the raids saying the BJP was “using the ED to fulfil their dream of winning the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections”. “Democracy is being murdered. Only non-BJP governments are being harassed,” he said.

AAP national convenor and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said this was the second ED raid at the residence of an AAP leader within three days. “Will the Prime Minister tell us how much black money has been recovered from the countless raids conducted so far at the residences of AAP leaders? The entire country is watching how petty politics you are indulging in just for the sake of power,” Kejriwal posted on X.

Union Minister of State and BJP leader Ravneet Singh Bittu, while reacting to the raids, wrote on Facebook: “Sab farey jaange (Everyone will be caught).”

The ED officials, meanwhile, said that Arora’s realty firm is under scanner for alleged irregularities such as “illegal change of land use in Punjab, booking fraudulent and inflated sales to inflate share prices, insider trading in stock market and round-tripping of ill-gotten funds and illegal money from UAE to India and so on”.

Companies linked to Arora are also under scanner for allegedly booking “fake” export bills and registering bogus purchases from non-existing GST entities, ED officials said.

The ED had raided 17 premises linked to Arora on October 7, 2024. The ED had then said that it found that the Punjab government had allotted industrial land to Arora’s realty firm with certain conditions with an objective to promote industries, but the firm allegedly breached the conditions of allotment.

ED investigation further revealed that Hampton Sky Reality alienated the land use without the permission of the Punjab government, and later developed a residential project and business park on it “by concealing material facts at the time of seeking permission of the Punjab government for the project.”

Arora was the CMD of the firm at the time. However, in August 2025, he resigned from all the posts in his company and eight other associated firms after being elevated as cabinet minister.