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Police remand for Chahal in assets case

Staff Correspondent

This is the fifth case that has been registered against Amarinder’s media aide

- PHOTO: PTI

B.I.S. Chahal, ex-media adviser to former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, being brought to a Patiala court on Friday.

CHANDIGARH: A Patiala city court remanded B. I. S. Chahal, Media Adviser to former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, to three days’ custody with the Vigilance Bureau, which had booked him for possessing assets disproportionate to the known sources of his income.

Chahal, who was earlier in judicial custody after being arrested in a case of attempt to murder, land-grab and rioting, was produced in the court of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, K. K. Karir, on Friday.

This is the fifth case that has been registered against him. He already faces charges of involvement in the multi-crore Ludhiana City Centre scandal and two matters related to cheating a car dealer and a caterer.

The State Vigilance Bureau slapped the disproportionate assets case on Mr. Chahal after the Punjab and Haryana High Court, on Thursday, rejected his application for giving him seven days’ notice before arrest in any case. Subsequently the High Court, on Friday, adjourned the hearing on his request for bail in the attempt to murder case till Monday, when it would also take up the pleas for bail filed by the former Chief Minister’s son Raninder Singh and another close relative, who have also been booked in the Ludhiana City Centre case.

According to the FIR, the Patiala wing of the Vigilance Bureau Police assessed some of Mr. Chahal’s properties at Rs 15.5 crore and accused him of hawala transactions amounting to Rs. 30 crore during the past five years. Among the properties under the scanner are those located in Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Delhi, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Patiala, Himachal Pradesh, shares in a construction company, and some petrol pumps.

The Bureau is expected to interrogate Mr. Chahal for some “unknown bank accounts” both in India and abroad.

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