Almost five months after his arrest by the Law Enforcement Branch in connection with the multi-crore illegal sand mining case in February this year, Punjab Police on Monday booked the nephew of the former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, Bhupinder Singh alias Honey, and his assistant Kudratdeep Singh alias Lovie for carrying out illegal mining activities in the Malikpur area of Nawanshahr.
After registering the FIR for carrying out illegal mining activities in the Malikpur mine site area in 2017, the police also sent a notice to Bhupinder alias Honey to join the investigations in this case; while Kudratdeep, currently incarcerated in Kapurthala prison, will have a production mandate on Tuesday.
At the end of 2021, the Directorate of Enforcement, Jalandhar conducted raids on the premises of Bhupinder Singh alias Honey and Kudratdeep Singh alias Lovie. The ED then recovered various incriminating documents, digital devices and cash to the tune of Rs 9.97 crores related to proceeds of crime generated through illegal sand mining activities at the quarry site. sand from Malikpur.
The official spokesperson for the Punjab Police said that after a thorough investigation, an SIT revealed that the two defendants had carried out illegal mining activities in this area using heavy machinery, which violated the provisions of environmental clearance issued by the Punjab state level Environmental Authority, the spokesperson said, adding that the defendants also used fake 73 weigh slips (dated November 10, 2017), recovered by emergencies during searches.
The spokesperson said that as a result of all the investigations, the SIT recommended filing an FIR at once.
