Mohali: Senior Punjab leader and former MLA Sukhpal Singh Khahra, who was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with a money laundering case on Thursday, has been sent to one-day police remand. The law enforcement agency had sought 14-day custody of the Congress leader.
Officials familiar with the matter said that Khaira was arrested by the Delhi team of the ED after it collected enough evidence against the leader in connection with the case. The 56-yr old was held under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Khaira is under investigation for money laundering in at least two cases. It is alleged that Khaira, who is in the Congress now, visited the United States in 2016 when he was with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and raised funds totalling an amount of USD 119,000 from the Non-resident Indians (NRIs) in the run-up to Punjab state assembly elections.
Read: ED arrests former Punjab MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira in money laundering case
ED had also recovered documents pertaining to this funding during a raid in March this year, and when he was questioned about it, he disclosed that the entire fund-raising trip was organised by the AAP and that he had no knowledge of the funding, the officer added.
Khaira was elected to the state assembly in 2017 from Bholath in Kapurthala district on an AAP ticket. Two years ago, he quit the AAP and formed the Punjab Ekta Party (PEP), which he merged with Congress in June this year.
In September this year, the ED recorded the statement of AAP national secretary Pankaj Gupta in connection with alleged foreign funds raised by the party in the run-up to the 2017 Punjab assembly elections, a move that the AAP described as a political vendetta at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
