ED chargesheets 12 more in Bhola drug case

Aman Sood

Tribune News Service

Patiala, March 2

Almost a year after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed a 1,300-page chargesheet against alleged druglord Jagdish Singh Bhola and seven others, the investigating agency today filed a supplementary chargesheet against 12 more accused in the case. They have been charged with investing drug money in property and transferring funds abroad through hawala.

With this, the ED has so far named 19 accused in the case. More than 35 names are still under scrutiny.

The latest additions in the chargesheet are Anup Singh Kahlon, Manpreet Singh Mani, Sukhjeet Singh Sukha, Maninder Singh Bittu Aulakh, Varinder Raja, Harpreet Singh, Devinder Singh alias Happy, Gurdeep Singh Manchanda, Ankur Bajaj, Anil Bajaj, Subhash Bajaj and a firm M/s Bajaj Foreign Exchange Pvt Limited, Chandigarh.

The ED chargesheet prepared by Gurnam Singh, Deputy Director, Directorate of Enforcement, elaborates how numerous transactions were made through this firm and its owners to various accounts abroad. The fresh challan substantiates the earlier ED claims in the court that pointed towards a nexus of money exchanging firms operating in Chandigarh and Punjab.

Bhola and another main accused named in a separate FIR, Anup Singh Kahlon, allegedly transferred money through these firms.

Last year, the ED had named seven persons, including some Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), money-exchangers and relatives of the accused in whose names money and properties were bought or who helped the drug dealers transfer money out of country through hawala transactions.

Documents part of the chargesheet filed by the ED also highlight how hundreds of benami entries to various accounts held by NRIs in the US, the UK, Canada, Sharjah and other countries had received or transferred money.

The bail application filed by Bhola has been completed as senior advocate Satish Karkra, representing the alleged druglord, argued that the ED had failed to give any evidence on the involvement of his client in the drug trade. The local court has reserved the decision for March 5 when the case will next come up for hearing.

“I have reasons to believe that many movable and immovable properties (mentioned in the chargesheet) were purchased/acquired by them (the six accused named in the chargesheet) out of proceeds of crime, and that the above mentioned properties are likely to be concealed, transferred or dealt with in any manner which may result in frustrating any proceedings relating to confiscation of such proceeds of crime as the matter is under investigation,” read an excerpt from the chargesheet.