Former Haryana MLA Dilbag Singh and his right-hand Kulwinder Singh were arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in an alleged illegal mining-linked money laundering investigation. The ED had raided about 20 locations that were linked to Dilbag and his entities on January 4, and the five-day-long search ended on Monday, news agency PTI reported. Dilbag Singh was a former legislator of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) from the Yamuna Nagar assembly seat, and a Congress MLA from Sonipat.
According to PTI, ED took the former Haryana MLA into custody under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and will produce both of them before a local court, where the central agency will seek their custody further in another fresh case of illegal mining for possession of illicit firearms.
The agency recovered around 300 bullets and catridges, five illegal riffles, Rs 5 crore cash, and more than 100 liquor bottles from the premises of Dilbag and his aides, PTI's report mentioned.
As soon as the agency found out that Dilbag Singh's licence for the weapons had expired, it filed an FIR at the Pratap Nagar police station during the course of the searches itself, the report stated.
ED had also informed the Haryana Excise Department of the recovery of liquor bottles from his premises. The latter then filed a separate police complaint for the storage of liquor bottles in an allegedly illegal way. The wine boxes and bottles were recovered from a farmhouse in the Raiyanwala village of Yamuna Nagar district, as per PTI.
The money laundering case took shape from the several FIRs that were registered by the Haryana Police to investigate the illegal mining of gravel, sand, and boulders that happened in and around Yamuna Nagar and its nearby districts even though the lease had expired and mining was banned by the National Green Tribunal, reported PTI.
ED is also probing a suspected fraud in the e-Ravana scheme introduced by the Haryana government in 2020. It was an online portal launched to simplify the collection of taxes and royalties in order to avoid tax evasion in mining areas. As per official sources cited by PTI, these illegal activities were being carried out by a syndicate that was allegedly linked to the politicians.
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