A month after Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann warned action against senior Congress leader Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, the latter was arrested in connection with a corruption case on Tuesday.
Dharamsot was former minister for forest and social welfare department in ex-CM Captain Amarinder Singh’s Cabinet.
The development comes as part of Mann government’s move to heavily crackdown on state’s Punjab.
Dharamsot has been held, along with a local journalist, Kamaljit Singh, who was allegedly working as his close aide, the Hindustan Times reported. Both have been arrested under corruption charges.
The Vigilance Bureau said that officials had collected evidence Dharamsot last week when they made two arrests – a divisional forest officer, Gurnampreet Singh, and Harminder Singh Hummi, a person who has been accused of paying hefty bribes to Dharamsot via journalist Kamaljit.
Earlier, during Captain Amarinder’s CM tenure, Sadhu was given a clean chit after he was charged in a scholarship scam by an IAS officer, Kirpa Shankar Saroj.
This time, officials gathered sufficient evidence in corruption case, the report added.
Last week, the Vigilance Bureau arrested Mohali DFO over graft charges. He disclosed to officials how Dharamsot used to be bribed before cutting a single tree.
Dharamsot’s arrest comes a week after CM Mann appointed ADGP Verinder Kumar as the chief director of the Vigilance Bureau, replacing IPS officer Ishwar Singh.
When Amarinder Singh was the Chief Minister, Verinder was the state intelligence head and had made a dossier of corruption of MLAs and ministers. However, the Congress government didn’t act, the report added. However, Mann is acting on the same evidence.
With inputs from News18