In a major jolt to the Punjab government, the Enforcement Directorate has once again intensified the heat on the liquor mafia, politicians, and the bureaucrats of the state. ED has now registered a money laundering case in the illicit liquor scam, including the spurious hooch tragedy which had claimed the lives of over 100 people in just 3 days in three districts of the state.
ED had already written to the Punjab Police to provide them the details of the FIRs lodged so far across the state in the illicit liquor trade, but received no response.
Now, the ED office in Jalandhar has filed Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in 13 FIRs, involving the 122 deaths due to the spurious liquor in Tarn Taran, Amritsar, and Batala and liquor bootlegging plants at Shambhu, Khanna, and Ludhiana which were exposed during the coronavirus induced lockdown. However, a chargesheet would be produced before the court by the agency.
The ED will now track these cases and have already asked from the SSPs to supply them with the required documents. Notably, the ED has asked for information about illegal liquor distilleries, inter-state liquor smuggling, source of raw material used for illegal liquor distilleries, and illegal liquor factories run by distilleries with a motive to save taxes.
A senior officer in the ED on the latest development said Thursday’s development means that they are now probing all cases registered in illegal liquor scam and hooch tragedy and will file a chargesheet in the court against the culprits and may initiate the process of attachment of the properties of accused.
It has been learned from the top sources of ED, liquor mafia managed to do the business of Rs 2,000-3,000 crore by smuggling operations in Punjab and its neighboring states amid the lockdown.
It has been learned from the sources that the initial findings had pointed towards a political-bureaucrat nexus that patronized the liquor mafia in the state. Also, Punjab Police was allegedly under the pressure of local politicians, and even the role of Excise Department officials, who are politically well-connected, was under the scanner of ED.
Names of three Congress MLAs and their close aides have been, directly or indirectly, surfaced in the illicit liquor trade. Besides this, ED will also explore how much money has been made and where it was spent, its beneficiaries in the case.
ED is likely to interrogate these politicians on Monday to bust the liquor mafia. Notably, this is the second time that ED has intensified the heat over the political-bureaucrat nexus in the illicit liquor case. It has also been said that ED has filed a petition against Punjab CM's son in Ludhiana for being involved in the nexus. With this, the Punjab government might land in big trouble.
Lately, the CM had promised to book the guilty and constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to unravel the nexus which has been actively hitting the excise revenues of the state.
ED Deputy Director, Niranjan Singh, is investigating the matter, who had already busted a few major drug rackets namely Bhola Drug Racket, Raja Kandola Drug Racket. Niranjan Singh is known as an upright officer who works diligently to safeguard the interests of the natives.