New Delhi: The Punjab Vigilance Bureau Wednesday arrested senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a disproportionate assets case, linked to a 4-year-old drug case against him.
The arrest took place at Majithia’s residence in Amritsar. Teams of the bureau carried out raids at around 25 premises linked to Majithia across the state, including around nine in Amritsar.
The arrest comes in a fresh case filed by the Vigilance Bureau, based on a report submitted by the Special Investigation Team constituted by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to probe allegations of Majithia’s involvement in a drug cartel.
Giving details of the new case against Majithia, a Vigilance Bureau spokesperson said over Rs 540 crore was laundered through illicit channels into the bank accounts of companies facilitated by the former cabinet minister, including transfers through foreign entities.
The spokesperson added that unaccounted cash amounting to Rs 161 crore was deposited in firms controlled by Majithia, while another Rs 141 crore is suspected to have been routed through offshore entities. Further breaking it down, the spokesperson said that excess cash totalling Rs 236 crore was deposited in company financial statements without any disclosures.
Before his arrest, in a video put out on X, Majithia alleged that a team of the bureau had trespassed into his house and threatened his family and staff early in the morning.
“This is not the way. You are trespassing into my house. Please first introduce yourself. Don’t come and threaten people in my house. I am sitting here, you are barging into my house. I shall not be pushed over,” Majithia is heard confronting Deputy Superintendent of Police-rank officer Inderpal Singh in the video uploaded by him.
Singh is heard responding to Majithia that he is challenging the entire state by confronting the officials. Majithia’s wife and MLA Ganieve Kaur was present at the residence at the time.
Responding to Majithia’s arrest, his sister and Lok Sabha MP from Bathinda, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, termed it a move to silence him as he was an outspoken critic of the Bhagwant Mann-led government in Punjab.
“Bhagwant Mann has sent his police to my younger brother Bikram Singh Majithia’s house to suppress the voice of truth, he has reminded us of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi on 25 June, 1975,” she said in a post on X, adding that “our family has never bowed down to the pressure of governments before and will not bow down now”.
The drugs case against Majithia
Majithia has long had a run-in with the state government over his alleged involvement in the 2013 Bhola drugs case, a money laundering and drugs investigation pegged at Rs 6,000 crore by the Enforcement Directorate.
A former DSP in Punjab, Jagdish Bhola was convicted in the case and it was alleged that Majithia was also involved in the racket.
Based on disclosures in the case, Majithia was booked in a case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, in December 2021, and a Special Investigation Team ordered by the Punjab and Haryana High Court continued to probe the case against him.
Majithia has maintained political vendetta as the reason behind the charges and probe by the SIT against him.
Meanwhile, Arvind Kejriwal, national convener of Aam Aadmi Party that is in power in Punjab, said in Delhi Wednesday that the message of the ongoing campaign against drugs was that no one involved in the business would be spared, irrespective of their political clout.
Addressing workers after the party’s win Monday in the Ludhiana West assembly seat bypoll, he said: “Drugs are being smuggled in other states such as Delhi, Haryana, Gujarat and Goa but the intensity of the war against drugs in Punjab is different.”
“Drug lords are being attacked, their houses are being demolished. Action on the drug mafia has been taken irrespective of how big political leaders they are. The people who had first brought drugs into Punjab and pushed the state into it, and they were ministers in the state, they used to supply drugs in their own vehicles and harboured international drug smugglers in their homes,” he added.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: Punjab’s war on drugs is an asymmetric fight. Poor infra, not enough doctors or data