Suspended DIG Bhullar case: CBI raids Patiala property consultant's house

A CBI team today conducted a raid at the house of Bhupinder Singh, owner of BH Properties, in Patiala following some inputs in the case of suspended Ropar Range DIG Harcharan Singh Bhullar who has already been arrested.

The CBI team arrived at his house and carried out the search operation. The team did not allow anyone to enter or leave the house. Sources say that the name of BH Properties came up during sustained questioning of Bhullar and some documents found by the CBI, though officials remain tightlipped over the matter.

The CBI teams that reached Patiala Moti Bagh residence of Bhupinder in the morning around 7.30 am continued with the search operation till the filing or this report.

A senior police official said that the CBI team reached the house at 7.30 am and entered it after being let in by the gardener. “Once we got an intimation, we deputed policemen outside the house on raid to ensure security,” he told TNS.

BH Properties is a known property consultant and a dealer owning many real estate projects in Patiala and Mohali. He is closely linked with many top leaders, officers and policemen posted in Patiala and Chandigarh.

The raid follows a day after a Mohali court dismissed as “infructuous” an application moved by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau seeking a production warrant against suspended Ropar Range DIG Harcharan Singh Bhullar in a disproportionate assets case even as the CBI called it as an “attempt to frustrate its investigation”.

Bhullar was shown “formally arrested” by the VB in the disproportionate assets case at Chandigarh’s Burail jail on October 31 at the same time when he was in the CBI’s “judicial custody”.

The CBI arrested Bhullar in a Rs 8-lakh bribery case on October 16. Subsequent searches at his house and other locations led to the recovery of Rs 7.5 crore, 2.5 kg of gold jewellery, 26 luxury watches, two high-end cars, 100 litres of alcohol and documents of 50 immovable assets. Bhullar’s advocate, however, contested the recoveries by claiming that these pertained to ancestral wealth.

Over the past fortnight, four cases — under the Prevention of Corruption Act, Excise Act and two separate FIRs related to disproportionate assets (first by the CBI and then the VB) — have been registered against the DIG.