BJP leader mentioned in NDPS FIR against Majithia summoned

Majithia was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act on December 20, 2021. The FIR mentions Boni Ajnala, who had turned against Majithia even before the 2017 assembly elections to support one of the accused, Maninder Singh Bittu Aulakh, in the Jagdish Bhola drug case.

Bony Ajnala will appear before the SIT for the second time during the AAP government. He first appeared in May 2022.

In the FIR (against Majithia), Jagjit Singh Chahal (who had a pharmaceutical factory named Montek Pharma) had disclosed the alleged involvement of both Majithia and Bony Ajnala in sand mining business.

“Jagjit Singh Chahal has stated that Bikram Singh Majithia was involved in the sand mining business with Maninder Singh Aulakh @ Bittu Aulakh and Bony Amarpal Ajnala, (former) MLA, Ajnala. Whereas, Maninder Singh Aulakh @ Bittu Aulakh has stated that Bikram Singh Majithia was involved in the sand mining business along with Kanwarjit Singh @ Rosy Barkandi (sitting MLA) resident of Muktsar…,” reads the FIR.

Once Bony Ajnala used to be a close confidant of Majithia. But he and his family turned against Majithia during the SAD regime from 2012 to 2017. In March 2016, Bony Ajnala – as chief parliamentary secretary in the SAD-BJP government – had written to his own party chief minister (then) Parkash Singh Badal and alleged that one of his friends, Maninder Singh Bittu Aulakh, had been wrongly implicated in the Jagdish Bhola drug smuggling case under pressure from Sukhbir Badal and Bikram Majithia.

Even after the formation of the Congress government in the state in 2017, Bony Ajnala submitted an affidavit, carrying the same allegations, to the Justice Mehtab Singh Commission, which was formed by then chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh to probe the alleged false police cases registered during the rule of the SAD-BJP government. Not only this, Bony Ajnala also appeared as a witness in favour of his friend Bittu Aulakh in the Jagdish Bhola drugs case in Mohali court and repeated what was said in the affidavit to the Justice Mehtab Singh Commission.

Later, Bittu Aulakh was acquitted in the case. Bony Ajnala had claimed in the affidavit that Bittu Aulakh ran a hotel in Amritsar. “My father (former MP) Rattan Singh Ajnala, then as Amritsar rural president of SAD, used to hold party meetings at the hotel of Aulakh. I introduced Bittu to Bikram Singh Majithia in 2005, and Bittu was my election agent in 2012 and also helped Majithia. But after the formation of the Akali government again in 2012, the rift between Majithia and his (Ajnala) family widened, and Majithia asked Bittu to distance himself from us or face dire consequences,” Bony Ajnala claimed in the affidavit.

“My friend Bittu Aulakh has no links with any drug smuggler, and he has been falsely implicated to tarnish the image of our family, and this was made the reason for denial of a ticket to contest Lok Sabha elections in 2014 to my father,” reads the affidavit.

Bony Ajnala and his father Rattan Singh Ajnala had quit SAD in 2018.

During an interview with The Indian Express in October 2018, before quitting the party, Bony Ajnala had said, “I am ready to table my income tax returns in the public domain and compare it with that of Majithia. We all know who was running the illegal business of sand mining, cable, liquor in the state. Compare what we have earned in 10 years and what they have earned.” Bony Ajnala and his father Rattan Singh Ajnala had returned to SAD fold in 2020. Bony Ajnala had joined BJP in February earlier this year.

The Punjab Bureau of Investigation had booked Majithia under Sections 25 (punishment for allowing one’s premises for its use for the commission of an offence), 27 A (punishment for financing illicit trafficking and harbouring offenders) and 29 (for abetting or plotting an offence) of the NDPS Act at the Punjab state crime police station in Mohali on December 20, 2021.