CHANDIGARH: Mehtab Khaira son of former MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira today alleged that Enforcement Directorate has hatched conspiracy to malign, initimidate and harrass his father and to keep him out of election arena.
In a statement he said that the ED while raiding our premises on 09.03.21 had led loose a plethora of allegations targeting my father as an international drug kingpin, having fake passports, having illegal foreign currency/donations, amassing ill gotten wealth through drug money etc., has in its challan miserably failed to prove any of these charges and has assumed the role of a mere “Income Tax Inspector”.
The Challan contains no mention of illegal foreign funds to the tune of 1.19 lac USD collected by my father as alleged at the time of his arrest on 11.11.21. The web of concocted lies built by ED in its 80 pages challan only revolves around Rs. 3.82 crore difference between our income and expenditure from 01.04.2014 to 31.03.2020. The ED which claims to be the premier agency of India to prevent money laundering to the tune of thousands of crores has stooped to such a low level to investigate the wedding expenses of my sister’s and my wedding’s of 2016 and 2019 respectively and small renovation of our Chandigarh house.
Surprisingly while indicating a difference of 3.82 crore in our income and expenditure for a period of six years (2014 to 2020) the ED has wilfully and purposely ignored to include our two agricultural loan limit accounts of Union Bank of India and the regional Capital Bank Kapurthala to the tune of Rs. 2 crores raised by my father for the purpose of said weddings.
Similarly the ED did not take into account approximately Rs. 60 lac received during the said weddings, or loans raised by closed friends and relatives and most importantly our family agriculture income approx. Rs. 1.5 crore during these six years, which sufficiently explains the said difference between our income and expenditure of the said period of six years.
The ED has very dramatically without providing any proof or evidence has verbally attributed the said Rs. 3.82 crores as proceeds of crime (drug money) received from Gurdev Singh resident of V. Lakhan Ke Padde convicted in FIR No. 35 PS Sadar Jalalabad, Fazilka since 2015 alongwith 10 other persons. The ED has not provided any documents either of property, vehicles, cash or bank transactions etc. to prove that we got this 3.82 crores from Gurdev Singh as drug money. All allegations of ED about this so called proceeds of crime are only hearsay and bundle of lies.
In a yet another laughable and preposterous story the ED in para 7.2 of page 70(challan) while defining the role of Gurdev Singh alleges that he instead of repaying his defaulted bank loans (for which recovery suits were initiated by the banks) chose to provide us drug money and that too for organising election meetings in 3-4 villages or accompanying my father in his own vehicle.
To further add to the mockery of law ED has relied upon the statement of one NDPS convict Harbans Singh and co accused of Gurdev Singh in para 5 of page 59 to allege that my father approached higher level police officers to help Gurdev Singh in drug smuggling, which is untrue and false as my father was neither MLA nor exhorted any influence on the police machinery as he was in opposition in 2015.
To sum it up, the challan is nothing but a bundle of lies, a cheap attempt by ED to shoot a messenger, to gag the voice of my father a known whistleblower, to harass our family and to keep him out of the election frame. The challan also exposes the deep rooted conspiracy between BJP and AAP as one of the reasons for the arrest of my father on 11.11.21 was based on the utterly false statement of Pankaj Gupta AAP Secretary, who while deposing before ED in Delhi had accused my father of collecting 1.19 lac USD.
Mehtab Singh Khaira said his father and their family will continue their crusade against all kinds of injustice and corruption irrespective of such cheap arm twisting methods adopted by the BJP through its puppet agency of ED or the politics of lies being pursued by AAP leadership in their quest for power.