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

New Delhi, Feb 25 (IANS) A local court on Friday extended till March 10, the judicial custody of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi's nephew Bhupinder Singh Honey in connection with an illegal sand mining case.

Honey was produced before the court by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) after the expiry of his 14-day judicial custody in connection with a Prevention of Money Laundering case pertaining to the illegal mining in Punjab.

Earlier 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 11.

During this eight-day questioning, the ED confronted him with various documents and recorded his statements. "Honey was evasive and did not cooperate with the probe agency," sources said.

His 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 posting.

"Moreover, Bhupinder Singh has explicitly stated in his statement during 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 have generated such proceeds of crime through mining related activities including clearance of mining files and transfer of officials," read the document.

Sources have claimed since Bhupinder was close to Channi, he was using the political connection to earn huge profit.

According 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 too.

On January 18, the ED conducted raids at ten different locations, including Homeland Heights -- Honey's residence.

The ED continued with its raids at different places for two days and recovered incriminating documents.

It had recorded the statement of Kudrat Deep Singh, the business partner of Honey.

Incriminating 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 raids.

A source said that the documents recovered by them have confirmed that Kudrat Deep Singh was running two firms and Bhupinder was joint director in them.

As 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 33.33 per cent equal shares.

On March 7, 2018, an FIR against more than 10 people was lodged by Punjab Police with its Rahon Police Station under sections 21(1), 4(1) of mines and mineral act read with sections 379, 420, 465, 467, 468 and 471 of UPC.

Bhupinder Singh Honey was not named in the Punjab Police's FIR and Kudrat Deep Singh was given a clean chit in the matter.

The ED initiated a money laundering probe on the basis of the FIR pertaining to illegal sand mining in Punjab in November 2021.