ED likely to seek more custody of Channi's nephew, says not cooperating

New Delhi, Feb 8 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate is likely to seek an extension of remand of Bhupinder Singh Honey, the nephew of Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi.

Honey will be produced before the court on Tuesday after the expiry of his custody in connection with a Prevention of Money Laundering case pertaining to the illegal mining in Punjab.

Sources claimed that the ED is mulling to seek more custody as Honey was reportedly evasive during the interrogation and was not cooperating with the probe agency. ED sources said that he needs to be confronted with other accused and a few more documents.

Honey was arrested during the intervening night of February 3 and 4, and remanded to ED custody till February 8.

Honey was interrogated by a team of elite officials of the central probe agency. His family had been allowed by the court to meet him once for an hour everyday.

The ED document accessed by the IANS reads that 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 having generated such proceeds of crime through mining related activities, including clearance of mining files and transfer of officials," read the ED document.

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

According to ED documents, Honey has confessed that it was his Rs ten crore which were recovered during raids.

ED has alleged that he was getting money from illegal mining too.

On January 18, ED had conducted raids at ten different locations, including Homeland Heights which is the residence of Honey.

The ED continued raiding at different places for two days and recovered incriminating documents.

Honey was asked to appear before ED's zonal office in Jalandhar. He had to record his statement in connection with the ongoing probe.

The ED officials had recorded the statement of Kudrat Deep Singh, the business partner of Honey.

The ED official had said that they seized incriminating documents pertaining to illegal sand mining, property transactions, cell phones, gold worth above Rs 21 lakh, a watch worth Rs 12 lakh and cash of Rs 10 crore during the raids.

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

As per sources, the firms are basically shell companies, but the ED has found a lot of money transactions. One of the firms is Provider Overseas Consultancy Limited, which was incorporated in 2018 with 33.33 per cent equal shares.

The ED case is on the basis of a two year old FIR.

Punjab Police had on March 7, 2018, lodged a case against more than ten accused.

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

The FIR has been accessed by IANS, which was filed under several sections of IPC.

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 found that money was being laundered by the accused involved in the case and they started probing the matter.