Sand mining case: Judicial custody of Channi's nephew extended till March 10

A local court has extended till March 10 the judicial custody of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channis nephew Bhupinder Singh Honey in connection with an illegal sand mining caseHoney was produced before the court by the Enforcement Directorate ED after the expiry of his 14day judicial custody in connection with a Prevention of Money Laundering case pertaining to the illegal mining in PunjabEarlier on two occasions the court had granted ED the custody of Honey Honey was arrested on the intervening night of February 3 and 4 by the ED which got his custody till February 8 It was later extended till February 11During this eightday questioning the ED confronted him with various documents and recorded his statements Honey was evasive and did not cooperate with the probe agency sources saidHis counsel Harneet Singh Oberoi was allowed to meet him on alternate days According to a few documents accessed by the IANS Honey allegedly used to take money from officials in lieu of their choice of transfer and postingMoreover Bhupinder Singh has explicitly stated in his statement during search interalia that all cash which was seized from his residential premises at Ludhiana Rs 409 crore Sandeep Kumars premises at Ludhiana Rs 199 crore and from the Homeland House Premises at Mohali Rs 389 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 read the documentSources have claimed since Bhupinder was close to Channi he was using the political connection to earn huge profitAccording to the documents Honey has confessed that the ten crore rupees recovered by the ED during raids belonged to him The ED has alleged that he was getting money from illegal mining tooOn January 18 the ED conducted raids at ten different locations including Homeland Heights Honeys residenceThe ED continued with its raids at different places for two days and recovered incriminating documentsIt had recorded the statement of Kudrat Deep Singh the business partner of HoneyIncriminating documents pertaining to illegal sand mining property transactions cell phones gold worth above Rs 21 lakhs and a watch worth Rs 12 lakhs and cash Rs 10 crore were seized during the raidsA source said that the documents recovered by them have confirmed that Kudrat Deep Singh was running two firms and Bhupinder was joint director in themAs per sources the firms are basically shell companies but the ED has found a lot of monetary transactions One of the firms is Provider Overseas Consultancy Limited which was incorporated in 2018 with 3333 per cent equal sharesOn March 7 2018 an FIR against more than 10 people was lodged by Punjab Police with its Rahon Police Station under sections 211 41 of mines and mineral act read with sections 379 420 465 467 468 and 471 of UPCBhupinder Singh Honey was not named in the Punjab Polices FIR and Kudrat Deep Singh was given a clean chit in the matterThe ED initiated a money laundering probe on the basis of the FIR pertaining to illegal sand mining in Punjab in November 2021This 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