ED conducts raids on Phagwara-based premises of SAD leader Jarnail Singh Wahid

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is conducting a search at the Phagwara-based premises of senior SAD leader Jarnail Singh Wahid since Wednesday morning.

The ED sleuths initiated raids at a sugar mill, his residence and a gym owned by his family in Phagwara. Wahid earlier co-owned the mill with his NRI partner Sukhbir S Sandal, but it is now being run by Rana Sugar Mills of Sultanpur Lodhi MLA Rana Inder Partap Singh.

The move against Wahid by the central agency comes on the basis of a Vigilance Bureau case lodged against him and his family two years ago for allegedly selling government land of the sugar mill. Wahid, his wife Rupinder Kaur and son Sandeep Singh had also then been arrested by the VB then. An FIR under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471, 166 and 176 of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act was lodged against them in September 2023.

Wahid has had a controversial past. He was already under the ED scanner in a case pertaining to alleged money laundering through hawala in 2003. The case pertained to the investment made by then Wahid’s NRI partner Sandal in the sugar mill. All their financial transactions were checked and the ED had summoned him in 2015 also in the same case. At that time, he was also the Markfed Chairperson.

In 2002, Wahid, as member of the Staff Selection Board (SSB), Punjab, along with other board members, was arrested by the Vigilance Bureau for irregularities in certain appointments during the SAD rule in the state in 1998-2002. He, however, reportedly managed to get a clean chit by Mohali court in 2010.