Two days before Congress is set to announce its chief ministerial face for Punjab, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi's nephew Bhupinder Singh alias Honey on charges of money laundering linked to an alleged illegal sand mining case of 2018. The central agency claimed that Honey has admitted that Rs 10 crore in cash recovered during raids last month “pertained to him” and were “generated through mining related activities including clearance of mining files and transfer of officials”. Honey, the son of Channi's sister-in-law, was arrested in the intervening night of Thursday and Friday under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after several hours of questioning at the ED office in Jalandhar. He was produced in the court of Additional district and sessions Judge Manjinder Singh, which remanded him in five day custody of the ED. The ED had sought his custody for 14 days. Meanwhile, Channi said that the illegal sand mining case in which his nephew has been arrested was being unnecessarily linked to him.“The matter is now in the court. We will accept whatever the court decides. But it is unnecessarily being linked to me,” Channi said. The central agency on January 18 and 19 had raided multiple locations in Punjab, including the premises of Honey, in connection with money laundering linked to an illegal sand mining case registered at Rahon police station of Nawanshahr district in 2018. The agency had claimed to have seized Rs 10 crore, including about Rs 8 crore cash and "incriminating" documents pertaining to sand mining business, and property from Honey's premises. In its plea presented in the court, (a copy with The Indian Express) for seeking Honey’s custody, the ED mentioned that during the course of searches, “statements of Kudratdeep Singh, Bhupinder Singh, Santokh Singh (father of Bhupinder Singh) and Sandeep Kumar were.recorded under section 17 of PMLA, whereby it has been established that the aforesaid cash (Rs 10 crore) actually belonged to Bhupinder Singh”. “Moreover, Bhupinder Singh has explicitly stated in his statement during search.that all cash which was seized from his residential premises at Ludhiana (Rs 4.09 Crore), Sandeep Kumar’s premises at Ludhiana (Rs 1.99 Crore) and from the Homeland House Premises at Mohali (Rs 3.89 Crore) actually pertained to him. He admitted to have generated such proceeds of crime through mining related activities including clearance of mining files and transfer of officials,” said ED’s official document. The same document further mentioned that during the course of search on January 18 at Honey's premises at Ludhiana, “various papers relating to mining activities of Malikpur Mine of Kudratdeep Singh as well as pages containing handwritten cash entries” were recovered and seized. It mentioned that on being shown the documents, Honey's father Santokh Singh stated that “those documents related to sand mining activities and only his son viz. Bhupinder Singh could explain about the same. This further indicates that Bhupinder Singh is deeply involved in the illegal sand mining activities of Malikpur Mine”. Further, Honey, “on being shown a copy of aforesaid seized documents pertaining to Malikpur Mine stated that he has no knowledge about the same”, said the ED document. “Despite of the fact that documents pertaining to Malikpur Mine were seized from his residential premises, which should be in his exclusive knowledge, he is giving evasive replies in this context, which clearly reveals his non-cooperative attitude towards the ongoing investigation under PMLA by hiding information which is in his exclusive knowledge,” said the ED plea filed in the court. For Honey, Advocate Harneet Singh Oberoi, contended that his client had been cooperating with the ED in its probe. “We told the court that Honey’s name was not there in the FIR of illegal sand mining registered in 2018 on the basis of which ED is making further investigation. My client has no connection with that case,” Oberoi said. On the recovery of Rs 10 crore cash from Honey and other director of his company, Oberoi said the matter is sub-judice and he cannot comment on it. Earlier, Honey was summoned to ED office where he was questioned till late night and then between 12:30 am to 1:00 am he was arrested. The ED had summoned him on January 24 too, but he gave it a miss on the ground that he was suffering from Covid-19 while Kudratdeep Singh had appeared before the agency. Honey and Kudartdeep Singh are the directors of Providers Overseas Consultants Private Limited, a firm the premises of which were raided recently by ED. It was on March 7, 2018 that Rahon police filed an FIR following a tweet by then CM Capt Amarinder Singh on illegal mining on the banks of Sutlej in Phillaur and Rahon. Surprise checks followed and an FIR was filed against 26 people linked to six mines. Kudratdeep was named but never arrested. He only appeared before police after securing bail and later an inquiry was marked in his case. He was later declared ‘innocent’ by police. Those searched by the ED last included Kudratdeep Singh, Honey, Sandeep Kumar, Manpreet Singh, Sunil Kumar Joshi, Jagveer Inder Singh, and Randeep Singh at different locations in Mohali, Ludhiana, Rupnagar, Fatehgarh Sahib and Pathankot. Financial records of the Providers Overseas Consultants for the year 2019-20, accessed by The Indian Express, show its total revenue from operations at around Rs 18.38 lakh with a total loss of Rs 4.74 lakh after meeting its expenses. The firm with the main function of education and immigration consulting has three directors including Kudratdeep Singh, Honey and Sandeep Kumar. All three are shareholders of 33.33 per cent each in the firm.
