Paddy scam accused still out of police reach

PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 21

District Food and Civil Supplies Controller AP Singh and Inspector Gurinder, said to be the prime accused for the bungling of government paddy, are still out of the reach of Vigilance sleuths. District Food and Civil Supplies Officer Raminder Singh Bath and Assistant Food Supply Officer Vipin Sharma are in the custody of the Vigilance Bureau.

The investigation so far has brought forth incriminate evidence against the suspects who failed to perform their duties due to “corrupt” practices in the department.

Huge quantity of government paddy worth crores of rupees was found misappropriated from Virumal Mulakhraj rice mill at Jandiala Guru allegedly by the owners of the mill. The incident came to light when the owners went underground after shutting down the mill.

According to Vigilance officials, the rice mill was allotted around 18 tonnes of government paddy for milling against its capacity of 5-6 tonnes and that is not possible without the involvement of the food and civil supplies officials. It clearly indicated the officials didn’t care two hoots while allotting the government paddy on the basis of which the owners took loan to the tune of Rs 200 crore from a bank.

Vigilance Director, ADGP BK Uppal along with other officials had come to the holy city to interrogate the suspects, including officials of Punjab National Bank, Pungrain and Punjab Warehousing Corporation on June 12.

The police had registered a case of fraud against mill owner Gulshan Jain and his family members, including Nitin Jain, his wife Nitu Jain, Sudhir Jain and his wife Sofia Jain in April this year. Later, the Vigilance Bureau included the names of four officials in the FIR. During the verification, a team constituted by the Punjab government reportedly found around 400 wagons of paddy worth Rs 30 crore to Rs 32 crore missing.

Vigilance SSP RK Bakshi said they had information that the accused owner and his family members had fled to Canada. Two of them fled from Delhi while remaining took flights from Mumbai, he added.

He said raids were being conducted to nab AP Singh and Inspector Gurinder Singh who had been evading arrest since the registration of case.