ED likely to seek more custody of Channi’s nephew as he is uncooperating with probe agency
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is likely to seek an extension of remand of Bhupinder Singh Honey, the nephew of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi.
After Honey was arrested and remanded to ED custody till February 8, the ED has claimed that he is not cooperating during the interrogation.
Honey will be produced before the court on Tuesday after the expiry of his custody in connection with a Prevention of Money Laundering case pertaining to the illegal mining in Punjab. The ED officials had recorded the statement of Kudrat Deep Singh, the business partner of Honey.
Sources claimed that the ED is mulling to seek more custody as Honey was reportedly evasive during the interrogation and was not cooperating with the probe agency. ED sources said that he needs to be confronted with other accused and a few more documents.
The ED document states that Honey allegedly used to take money from officials in lieu of their choice of transfer and posting. Honey has confessed that the money recovered during the raids, was his money. On January 18, ED had conducted raids at ten different locations, including Homeland Heights which is the residence of Honey.
“Moreover, Bhupinder Singh has explicitly stated in his statement during the search, inter-alia, 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 having generated such proceeds of crime through mining-related activities, including clearance of mining files and transfer of officials,” read the ED document.
Sources have claimed since Honey was close to Channi, he was using the political connection to earn huge profits. He was getting money from illegal mining too.
The ED official had said that they seized incriminating documents pertaining to illegal sand mining, property transactions, cell phones, gold worth above Rs.21 lakh, a watch worth Rs.12 lakh, and cash of Rs.10 crore during the raids.
A source said that the documents recovered by them have confirmed that Kudrat Deep Singh was running two firms and Bhupinder Singh Honey was the joint director in them.
As per sources, the firms are basically shell companies, but the ED has found a lot of money transactions. One of the firms is Provider Overseas Consultancy Limited, which was incorporated in 2018 with 33.33 percent equal shares.
The ED had initiated a money-laundering probe on the basis of this FIR pertaining to illegal sand mining in Punjab in November last year.
[With Inputs from IANS]
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