Punjab foodgrain scam: ED arrests former minister Ashu’s aide in Khanna
Rajdeep Singh Nagra, an aide of former Punjab food and civil supplies and consumer affairs minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, remanded in seven-day custody in connection with ₹2,000-crore foodgrain transportation-linked money-laundering case.
The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday arrested Rajdeep Singh Nagra, an aide of former Punjab food and civil supplies and consumer affairs minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, in connection with an alleged ₹2,000-crore foodgrain transportation-linked money-laundering case.
A special ED team conducted raids at multiple locations in Khanna and Ikolaha village on Wednesday and formally arrested Nagra early on Thursday. He was produced in a Jalandhar court that remanded him seven-day ED custody.
“During the course of investigation, Nagra’s name surfaced following which the raids were conducted. Even during Ashu’s interrogation, the investigation agency had found key evidence of his involvement in the proceeds of the crime,” an ED official said.
The ED seized incriminating documents, financial transactions records worth ₹3 crore and digital devices from Nagra’s locations.
Ashu was arrested by the ED on August 1 and was in the central agency’s custody for 10 days.
The ED had initiated a parallel probe into the money trail under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after the Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) registered a case on August 16, 2022.
In August last year, ED teams seized ₹6 crore and four bank lockers during raids at locations linked to Ashu and other accomplices besides seizing incriminating documents, digital devices and ₹30 lakh of unaccounted cash from 10 locations.
The case was registered against Ashu, his personal assistant Pankaj Kumar, alias Menu Malhotra, then food and civil supplies deputy director RK Singla, district food and civil supplies controller (DFSC) Rakesh Bhaskar, besides three contractors, Telu Ram, Yashpal, Ajaypal, for committing the fraud, causing a huge loss to the state exchequer by allegedly committing irregularities in accepting labour, cartage and transportation tenders for grain markets in Ludhiana district.
In the preliminary VB chargesheet, it was mentioned that the transportation, labour and cartage tenders allotted for the grain-lifting process during Ashu’s tenure as the minister were stage-managed.