Congress leader and former Minister of Forests, Social Welfare in Government of Punjab Sadhu Singh Dharamsot was arrested on Tuesday, 7 June, by the vigilance department in connection with an alleged post-matric scholarship scam.
A local journalist, Kamaljit Singh, who was allegedly working as an aide, was also arrested. A Vigilance Bureau official said that both of them were held under charges of corruption.
The bureau had collected evidence against the ex-minister when it arrested a divisional forest officer (DFO), Gurnampreet Singh, and another individual, Harminder Singh Hummi, last week, who is said to have paid huge bribes to Dharamsot, Hindustan Times reported.
The former minister has been sent to three-day police remand.
"The allegations against me are false," he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
Meanwhile, Congress leaders held a meeting at the Congress Bhavan in Chandigarh to discuss the matter.
The Allegations Against Dharamsot
While Hummi was bribing Dharamsot via Kamaljit Singh, the former Punjab Cabinet minister was indicted in a scholarship scam by IAS officer Kirpa Shankar Saroj. However, he was given a "clean chit."
Now, as per sources quoted by the newspaper, there was ample evidence of Dharamsot's involvement in corruption in the forest and social welfare departments.
The action comes a week after IPS officer Ishwar Singh was removed from the Vigilance Bureau by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. ADGP Verinder Kumar was then appointed as the chief director.
Kumar had served as the state intelligence head during former chief minister Amarinder Singh's tenure and had made a dossier of corruption of MLAs and ministers. However, it has been claimed that the Congress government didn't act.
'Vendetta, Attempt To Deflect From Issues': Congress
Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring took to Twitter to slam Dharamsot's arrest and accused Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of vendetta politics.
"Mann sahib, as expected, you want to deflect the main issues of lawlessness, unemployment, and interference of Kejriwal and others in Punjab by arresting S Sadhu s Dharamsot. Let law take its own course. Pl do not make it Kangaroo Court justice. Political vendetta shall boomerang (sic)," he tweeted.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times.)
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