Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s nephew, Bhupinder Singh alias Honey, was on Friday sent to the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) till February 8 by a Jalandhar court.Singh was arrested late on Thursday night the ED officers in a money laundering case linked to alleged illegal sand mining in the border state. The arrest comes just days ahead of polling for the 117-member Punjab legislative assembly. Voting will be held on February 20, while the results will be out on March 10.
After the arrest, the Punjab Chief Minister said that he had no objections to the law doing its work.Last month, the ED seized Rs 8 crore during a raid at premises belonging to Honey. The raids were conducted in connection with illegal sand-mining operations in Punjab.In a statement, the Enforcement Directorate said "incriminating" documents related to the "illegal" sand mining and property transactions, mobile phones, gold worth more than Rs 21 lakh, and a Rolex watch worth Rs 12 lakh were also seized during the searches.Reacting to the raids, Channi told reporters that relatives of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee were raided during the assembly polls in that state and that the "same pattern" is being followed by the ED in Punjab to "pressure" him, his ministers and Congress party members."We are ready to handle the pressure," he said, adding that he had no ties to the case.The case is based on a 2018 FIR at the Shaheed Bhagat Singh (SBS) Nagar police station that pressed charges under the Indian Penal Code and Mines and Minerals (Regulation of Development) Act, 1957.