The ED on Thursday late night arrested Bhupinder Singh Honey, nephew of Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi, in a money laundering case. Honey was arrested after a day-long interrogation by ED officials in Jalandhar. The arrest happened in the wee hours and after the arrest Honey complained of tachycardia for which he was taken to Government Hospital of Jalandhar. There he got checked by the doctors and found to be absolutely fine.
On Friday, ED produced Honey before the Mohali Court and it has remanded Honey to ED till 8 February.
On 18 January, the ED had raided the premises of Channi’s sister-in-law’s son Honey and others. He was raided at 10 different locations in Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Mohali, and Fatehgarh.
The ED is investigating six contractors in the illegal sand mining mafia and money laundering case related to it. During this, the investigating agency had seized Rs 6 crore and property papers from the residence of Honey and his associate. During this, they had recovered cash worth Rs 10.7 crore, gold worth about Rs 21 lakh and a Rolex watch worth Rs 12 lakh from the premises of Honey and his associates.
Since then, CM Channi had come under the target of the opposition. The Aam Aadmi Party has even demanded action against the CM from the Governor. After this, Punjab Governor Banwari Lal Purohit, acting on the complaint given by Raghav Chadha, co-in-charge of Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Punjab affairs, directed the state DGP to report the allegations against Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi in the illegal sand mining case. An inquiry order has been issued. On the other hand, Shiromani Akali Dal senior leader Bikramjit Singh Majithia said, “Money is grabbed, Honey is arrested, now it would be a turn of Channi”.
On the other hand, CM Channi after his nephew was arrested by ED, told media, “I have no objection with the arrest, the law is taking its course”.
Earlier Channi said that it was an attempt to create pressure and said that the election is near, so efforts are being made to put pressure on him and target him and his ministers. Similar attacks were made on Mamata Banerjee’s relatives during the West Bengal elections as well. Not only the ministers and the chief minister, but every Congress worker is under pressure.
This kind of environment is not good for democracy. Ready to bear all kinds of pressures and difficulties. They will not be successful, we will continue our election campaign.