Punjab Elections: Big blow to CM Channi, nephew Bhupinder Singh Honey arrested by ED

Punjab : Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s nephew Bhupinder Singh Honey was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday evening after a day-long interrogation. News agency ANI has given this information quoting sources. That Honey has been accused of illegal sand mining.

ED officials questioned him for eight hours. Rs 7.9 crore was seized from Bhupinder’s house and Rs 2 crore from the premises of his associate Sandeep Kumar. ED officials will again question two of his associates including Bhupinder Singh ‘Honey’ and Sandeep about the source of the seized cash. The trio are being probed for money laundering around an illegal sand mining racket. It is feared that shell companies were being used for money laundering and illegal sand mining. The Enforcement Directorate investigation has revealed that Bhupinder Singh, Kudratdeep Singh and Sandeep Kumar are the directors of Providers Overseas Services Pvt Ltd. The company was established in October 2018. Six months later, an FIR was registered against Kudratdeep Singh in the illegal sand mining case. The ED suspects that black money was invested in getting the sand mine contract. Sources say that the company is of a very small scale and there is no chance of getting contracts worth crores.

In a statement, the Enforcement Directorate had said that derogatory documents related to illegal sand mining and property transactions, mobile phones, gold worth over Rs 21 lakh and Rolex watch worth Rs 12 lakh were also seized during searches.

Voting will be held on February 20 to elect 117 members of the Punjab Legislative Assembly. Counting of votes will take place on March 10.