CHANDIGARH: A Mohali court on Tuesday extended by four days the vigilance custody of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia, brother-in-law of party president Sukhbir Singh Badal.
Majithia was earlier arrested in a disproportionate assets (DA) case. Meanwhile, Badal and several party workers were taken into preventive custody by Punjab Police to stop them from marching to the district court complex to express solidarity with Majithia.
Majithia was produced before the court amid tight security outside the Vigilance Bureau (VB) office and the district court complex in Mohali after his seven-day vigilance remand ended. He will be produced in court again on Sunday. He was brought to the court in a cavalcade of vehicles under heavy police protection.
The special public prosecutor stated that an alleged benami property of around 400 acres had been found at Mashobra in Shimla district.
Speaking to the media after a three-hour hearing, public prosecutor Ferry Sofat said the court extended Majithia’s remand by four more days after the Vigilance Bureau filed an application.
Meanwhile, SAD workers had gathered at Gurdwara Amb Sahib in Mohali to stage a protest against the “vendetta politics of the AAP government”, with several workers reaching Mohali from different parts of the state. The police detained a few workers en route to Mohali to prevent any law-and-order situation.
The Punjab Vigilance Bureau arrested Majithia on 25 June in the DA case, which allegedly involves laundering of ₹540 crore of “drug money”. Following his arrest, the court on 26 June remanded him to seven days of vigilance custody.
In the fresh case registered against Majithia, the VB claimed preliminary investigations had revealed laundering of over ₹540 crore of “drug money” through multiple channels, allegedly facilitated by him.
In 2021, Majithia was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. The action was based on a 2018 report of the anti-drug Special Task Force. He spent more than five months in Patiala jail and walked out of prison in August 2022 after being granted bail by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Badal, who was whisked away from Gurdwara Amb Sahib in Mohali, accused the AAP-led Punjab government of imposing an “undeclared emergency” in the state by cracking down on SAD workers who, he said, had the right to express solidarity with Majithia.
Badal alleged that Arvind Kejriwal “committed heinous sacrilege against sacred Sikh Gurdhams by abusing police to prevent devotees, including Akali workers, from paying obeisance at Gurdwara Amb Sahib, Mohali this morning”.
Earlier, Badal courted arrest along with numerous Akali workers to protest what he described as “political vendetta symbolised by the registration of a false case against senior leader Bikram Singh Majithia”.
He said, “That case is nothing but a symptom of Kejriwal’s hatred against Punjabis and an attempt to cover up his greed and loot in Punjab.”
Badal was stopped by police squads from visiting Gurdwara Amb Sahib to pay obeisance. He was scheduled to lead Akali workers to the State Vigilance Bureau office to protest the “political vendetta unleashed against Akali leader Bikram Majithia”.
He said the AAP was so afraid of the Shiromani Akali Dal that it launched a state-level crackdown on Akali workers and detained hundreds of senior leaders and workers at their residences, besides making preventive arrests.
“Everything in Punjab is being directed and run by Arvind Kejriwal. Police cases are just a façade. The real issue is the hatred this communal leader has against Punjabis. We, as Sikhs, Punjabis and Akalis, accept his challenge. We will not allow Punjab to be ruled by communal elements from Delhi,” Badal alleged.
He further claimed, “Kejriwal and his gang have finally and unashamedly shown their true dictatorial colours and brought back the dark memories of the worst draconian days of the Emergency. Now, as during the Emergency, the real targets are Punjabis in general and Akalis in particular.”
Badal added that Kejriwal had resorted to repression as a last desperate measure to divert public attention from “the loot that his gang was currently carrying out in Punjab”.
Repression and political vendetta, he said, were the last resorts of all unpopular and rootless leaders. Describing the crackdown on peaceful Akalis as worse than that during the Emergency or even the Jaitu Da Morcha, he said, “Not even during those days were Sikhs stopped from going to their sacred shrines, as Akali workers and I were stopped today from peacefully visiting our Gurdham, Gurdwara Amb Sahib, Mohali.”