Chandigarh: From close links with drug smugglers to even facilitating the supply of drugs, the Special Task Force (STF) appointed by the Congress government has made several serious claims against key Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia in its 2018 report.The three-year-old report became the basis for the Punjab police to register a case against Majithia under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act on Tuesday, which has already triggered a war of words between the Congress and the SAD.While SAD spokesperson Daljit Singh Cheema rubbished the report as baseless, it was reproduced in the 49-page FIR against Majithia, who is the brother-in-law of SAD president Sukhbir Badal. It says the statements of other accused point to Majithia’s involvement in the multi-crore drug racket – but the allegations need further investigation.The racket was identified in the winter of 2013, with the arrest of wrestler Jagdish Singh Bhola. Bhola’s nexus with those in power corridors began to unravel when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) started a parallel investigation to find a trail of profit earned from the illegal drug business.Bhola, who in 2019 was convicted and was awarded 24 years of imprisonment, had first admitted his role in the racket in a statement to the ED in 2014.During his interrogation, he named several others who he said were part of the racket, including local businessmen like Jagjit Chahal and Bittu Aulakh, NRIs such as Satpreet Singh alias Satta, Parminder Singh alias Pindi and Amrinder Singh alias Laddi.The most explosive name that he accused of involvement was Majithia, the then revenue minister in the SAD-BJP governmentWhile the probe into the allegations against Majithia remained slow-paced during the SAD-BJP government (2007-2017), the ED’s internal notes on him were shared by the Punjab and Haryana high court with the STF that the Congress appointed soon after winning the 2017 assembly polls.The report that the STF submitted to the high court in 2018, which has since then been in a sealed cover, has now come to life with elections on the horizon.With the case against Majithia coming so close to the elections, the SAD has cast aspersions on the intent while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also called it “mere election drama”.Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu, on the other hand, is taking credit for the police taking action on the STF report. He said the report was deliberately kept dormant by former Congress chief minister Amarinder Singh. Things moved fast after Singh was dethroned in September this year, claimed Sidhu.Amarinder Singh however denied these charges and said there was a technical difficulty to act on the report since it was not yet unsealed. He also said on Wednesday that the case against Majithia “will not stand legal scrutiny as the government had not followed due process of law”.But Sidhu claimed that there was no bar from the HC to act on the STF report, a point that has been backed up by the state’s recently appointed advocate general in his legal opinion submitted to the Punjab police before the case against Majithia was registered.The Punjab police on Wednesday formed a special investigative team under the AIG (crime) Balraj Singh to investigate the case.On Wednesday, the Union government issued a lookout notice against Majithia to prevent him from leaving India, at the request of the Punjab police.The SAD’s Daljit Cheema told The Wire that the lookout notice was “mere drama”. He said, “Majithia is very much in Punjab and will fight the Congress’s vendetta.”Punjab and Haryana high court. Photo: PTIWhat did the STF find?The STF delved into four major questions while inquiring into Majithia’s alleged role in the racket.The first was to find if he had an association with Satpreet Singh alias Satta, Maninder Singh Aulakh alias Bittu Aulakh, Parminder Singh alias Pindi, Amrinder Singh alias Laddi and Jagjit Chahal (names that cropped up during Bhola’s interrogation).The STF report claimed that after analysing the statements given by several accused to both the ED and the Punjab police, it is clear that Majithia had a close and extended relationship with Satta, a Canadian citizen, and others.It added that the allegations that Satta used to reside in Majithia’s house (whenever he visited India) and got vehicles and security from Majithia are believable. As per the report, Majithia was also well known to Aulakh and Chahal and also admitted to knowing them both.The statements of Jagdish Bhola, Chahal and Aulakh before the ED indicate that Pindi and Laddi, NRIs from Canada, too had a connection with Majithia.The second question was to find if Satta, Bittu Aulakh, Pindi, Laddi and Chahal were involved in drug trade. The STF said that their involvement was not in question as they were already prosecuted by the Punjab police in various trafficking cases. The ED has also filed cases against some of them, it said.Further, the STF quoted the ED status report dated August 17, 2016 to reveal that Satta along with Pindi and Laddi were involved in drug smuggling and money laundering relating to the profit out of drug business.The process to extradite them, sources said in the Punjab police said, may soon be started. Eight other extradition requests against alleged “drug lords” who are abroad are already pending the approval of the Canadian authorities, a recent note from the Union government informed the high court.While answering the third and crucial question of whether Majithia had any role in facilitating the drug trade, the STF claimed that after analysing all statements together, it is evident that the SAD leader had a role in facilitating the supply of pseudoephedrine (an ingredient used to make synthetic drugs) to Satta and Pindi.He also asked Chahal to directly supply pseudoephedrine to the above persons and also through Aulakh, it said.In this matter, the knowledge and intention on the part of Majithia to supply drugs to Satta and Pindi is very much clear, stated the STF report.The report, however, said Majithia denied the charge. Therefore, Satta and Pindi need to be questioned in this matter to “unearth the exact process of their criminal activities and complicity with various persons”.On the last question of monetary transactions between Majithia and the accused, the STF report claimed that that the evaluation of the statement of Jagjit Singh Chahal before the ED revealed that a payment of Rs 35 lakh was allegedly made to Majithia in about seven-eight instalments between 2007-2012 as he required these funds for election purposes. Chahal stated that Majithia received funds in Canada as well.As per the STF report, since Majithia denied these allegations, the matter regarding monetary transactions needs to be investigated further. The investigation also needs to focus on whether funds, if received, were transferred abroad or received abroad and whether they were converted into other assets.The STF also said that Chahal had claimed that Majithia was involved in the sand mining business with Aulakh and MLA Amarpal ‘Bony’ Ajnala. Aulakh also made the same allegation. The report said that Majithia’s alleged involvement in the sand mining business while being a minister in the government is a significant issue and needs to be verified through an investigation.“Therefore the subject whether funds from the alleged drug trade were also invested/utilised/held in common with funds from the alleged sand mining business merits a probe,” the report said.SAD’s slams caseThe SAD on Wednesday, December 22, charged the Congress government of using the ‘personal opinion’ of the STF in-charge Harpreet Singh Sidhu to register the case. The officer is related to Majithia and “had an axe to grind with him”, the party said.Addressing a press conference here, SAD spokesperson Parambans Singh Romana said Sidhu had admitted that he was related to Majithia and they were not on speaking terms for 15 years.“The officer has admitted that he based his report on the record of the Enforcement Directorate. If that is so, the ED was competent to file a challan against Majithia in case they had found anything incriminating against him. They did not do so,” said Romana, according to news agency UNI.Romana also said that the trial in the Jagdish Bhola case had ended in January 2019. “Even convictions were done in the case with Bhola and one Jagjit Chahal being convicted even as the third accused Bittu Aulakh was acquitted,” he added. Despite this, the police say Bittu Aulakh was instrumental in making the accused persons meet Majithia, the SAD spokesperson said.He added that after Chahal and Aulakh had approached the high court, a three-member SIT was constituted to revisit all the cases and submit its report. The court had also directed the SIT to exonerate any accused if needed and add fresh accused if any had been left out.“The SIT filed ten supplementary challans in the case and also submitted its final report. This should also be made public,” Romana said.He claimed that the entire case against Majithia was fabricated. “Two DGPs were changed and a third DGP – S. Chattopadhyay – was appointed to the post despite the fact that he was ineligible as his name was not even shortlisted for appointment as a regular DGP by the UPSC,” Romana said.The UPSC had even scheduled a meeting for the appointment of a regular DGP four days after Chattopadhyay’s appointment but the Punjab government chose to appoint him nevertheless, the SAD leader said. This point’s to a quid-pro-quo arrangement under which the police officer was charged with the task of registering a false case against Majithia, the spokesperson added.Meanwhile, Majithia has applied for anticipatory bail in a Mohali court.
