ED raids Punjab minister Sanjeev Arora, linked persons again

The raids also covered premises in Delhi and Gurugram Haryana, including that of a company named Hampton Sky Realty Ltd. The searches were launched after the central agency registered a fresh case under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLA, the officials said.

The Enforcement Directorate on Saturday conducted fresh searches against Punjab industries minister Sanjeev Arora and some others allegedly linked to him as part of an investigation into a newly registered money laundering case, officials said. They said Arora's official residence in Chandigarh is among the five premises raided. The raids also covered premises in Delhi and Gurugram (Haryana), including that of a company named Hampton Sky Realty Ltd. The searches were launched after the central agency registered a fresh case under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the officials said. In April, the ED had raided Arora and his linked entities under the civil provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). Arora, 62, is an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from the Ludhiana West assembly seat. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann reacted to the action and posted on X that Punjab will ''...never bow down before Modi's tactics.'' ''The end of this unethical alliance of ED-BJP will begin from Punjab,'' he claimed in his post. The latest probe (under the PMLA) pertains to ''fake'' GST purchases of mobile phones worth more than Rs 100 crore and subsequent exports to ''round trip'' alleged illegitimate funds from Dubai to India, as per the ED. It is alleged that multiple fake GST purchase bills were obtained from ''non-existing'' firms in Delhi to claim fake ITC (input tax credit). After the April searches, Arora said that he would fully cooperate with the probe agencies and that he was confident that the truth will prevail. The AAP has called the raids a political witch hunt launched at the behest of the BJP government at the Centre as Punjab goes to polls early next year. Arora was already being probed in an earlier money laundering case in which he was raided by the ED in 2024, when he and his associates were alleged to have misused industrial land for residential projects. He was then a Rajya Sabha MP. The ED, over the last few weeks, has undertaken some major actions against politically linked persons in Punjab, which is slated to go to the polls in early 2027. It raided the premises of Lovely Group promoter and Rajya Sabha MP Ashok Kumar Mittal, who defected to the BJP along with six other AAP MPs after the raids. The agency, earlier this week, raided some Punjab builders and real estate companies, and also an alleged associate of an AAP functionary, as it made allegations against Punjab AAP president and cabinet minister Aman Arora, who denied the charges, calling the ED claims a ''fabricated narrative.''