The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday carried out searches at premises associated with Sanjeev Arora, Punjab’s Industries Minister, as part of an ongoing investigation, officials said.
Residential and official premises of Arora and his son Kavya Arora (linked to a company named Hampton Sky Realty Ltd.) and Hemant Sood of Findoc Finvest in Ludhiana and an alleged bookie Chandrasekhar Aggarwal in Jalandhar are being covered, they said.
The ED teams were provided security by personnel from a central paramilitary force.
Arora, an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA from Ludhiana West, is understood to be travelling abroad as part of official work.
Arora had earlier been subjected to ED action in 2024. At the time, the agency alleged that companies linked to him and certain other entities had caused losses to the State exchequer and generated substantial proceeds of crime through the alleged misuse of industrial land for residential projects.
In a related development earlier this week, the ED conducted searches under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) at premises linked to Ashok Kumar Mittal, a Rajya Sabha member from the AAP, as well as his educational institutions in Punjab and Haryana.
Further details are awaited.
(With inputs from PTI )