'Channi's nephew accepted receiving Rs 10 cr for sand mining, transfer in state'

Bhupinder Singh alias Honey the arrested nephew of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi has accepted that he received Rs 10 crore cash in lieu of facilitating sand mining operations and transfer or posting of officials in the border state the Enforcement Directorate ED claimed in a statement on MondayHe was taken into custody by the federal probe agency in Jalandhar on February 3 as part of its money laundering investigation into alleged sand mining operations in PunjabHoney is the son of Channis sisterinlaw and he is in ED custody till TuesdayThe agency had conducted raids against Honey and others on January 18 and seized about Rs 79 crore cash from his premises and another about Rs 2 crore cash from a linked person identified as Sandeep KumarThe agency said in a statement that it has recorded the statements of Kudratdeep Singh Bhupinder Singh Honey Honeys father Santokh Singh and Sandeep Kumar during the searches and it was established that the seized Rs 10 crore belonged to Bhupinder Singh so Santokh SinghFurther Bhupinder Singh accepted that he received the seized cash in lieu of facilitation in sand mining operations and transferpostings of officials the ED claimedIt said Honey was issued summons for his personal appearance before the agency on February 3 along with some documentsIn response he appeared and tendered his statement wherein he interalia stated that he is involved in the mining related activities but took an evasive approach when confronted with incriminating data it saidHoney Kudratdeep Singh and Sandeep Kumar are stated to be the directors of a company called Providers Overseas Consultants Pvt Ltd that was raided by the ED last month in pollbound PunjabSingle phase assembly polls will be held in the state on February 20 and Channi has been declared as the Congress chief ministerial candidate by party leader Rahul Gandhi on SundayThe counting of votes is slated to be held on March 10 along with four other statesThe money laundering case was filed by the ED in November last year after taking cognisance of a Punjab Police Rahon police station Shaheed Bhagat Singh SBS Nagar FIR of 2018 that pressed charges under various sections of the IPC and that under the Mines and Minerals Regulation of Development Act 1957 to probe allegations of illegal sand miningIn this police FIR the ED said it was mentioned that a team comprising officials of mining department civil administration and police made a surprise check on in March 2018 based on a complaint received at the Rahon police station regarding illegal sand miningConsequently it was found that several mines were being excavated by various machines and mining was being carried out beyond the designated area he saidAccordingly several tipperstrucks porcelain machines JCB machines etc were captured and seized by the investigating team The seized tipper or trucks were also found to be overloaded with sand the ED quoted the police FIRThe seized weighment slips having office stamps had not been issued by the office concerned and were forged Subsequently the mining operation at Malikpur mining site belonging to Kudratdeep Singh and the approval of weighment slips were stopped by the team it saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever