The Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) on Monday arrested absconding accused Inderjit Singh Indi in the multi crore transportation tender scam in the grain markets of the state after he surrendered himself in the office of Bureau at Ludhiana.
He was working as a private personal assistant (PA) with former food and civil supplies minister of Punjab Bharat Bhushan Ashu.
Disclosing this, a spokesperson of the VB said the aforesaid accused was under pressure having apprehension that the court could declare him proclaimed offender (PO) in this scam as the VB has already initiated legal proceedings against him and next date of hearing was fixed for 4 January 2023. He will be produced in a competent court tomorrow at Ludhiana.
Giving more details, the Bureau had already registered a corruption case in August against contractor Telu Ram, Jagroop Singh, Sandeep Bhatia and partners of Gurdas Ram company as well as officers of Punjab food and civil supply department besides respective employees of the concerned procurement agencies for allocation of labour and transportation tenders in various grain markets in lieu of taking gratification.
The spokesperson said that in this case accused Telu Ram, former minister Ashu, private PA of former minister Pankaj Kumar , Krishan Lal Dhotiwala and Anil Jain (both commission agents) had already been arrested and all are in judicial custody.
In addition to this, the VB had already presented a supplementary chargesheet against Ashu, Telu Ram and Krishan Lal in the competent court at Ludhiana.
The spokesperson said during the probe and material evidence, it has come to light that the above-mentioned accused was working as PA with Ashu. A secret information was received that after the arrest of the minister Ashu, accused Inderjit Indi had received a bag containing jewellery, documents etc from an unknown person who brought it from Ashu’s house on 22
August 2022. After taking this bag Indi had left for an unknown place to hide it.
After verification, the scene was found captured in CCTV cameras, accordingly Inderjeet Indi was nominated as an accused.
