M A I N   N E W S

Vigilance raids Orbit Resort
SAD, INLD activists hold protest

Gurgaon, July 13
Continuing their search of properties owned by former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his family members, the Vigilance Bureau today raided Orbit Resort owned by his son and Rajya Sabha member Sukhbir Singh Badal here.

The Vigilance sleuths, who were accompanied by engineers of the Public Works Department (Building and Roads) and revenue officers, searched the premises spread over an area of 17 acres.

The engineers and architects accompanying the sleuths took measurements of the premises.

The sleuths could commence their search and measurement only after 2 pm, five hours after their reaching the resort, following a tussle between Sukhbir’s lawyers and vigilance officials.

Sukhbir’s counsel asked the officials to obtain an order from court for videography and photography as they had done before filming the Rajya Sabha MP’s house in Chandigarh recently.

After hours of discussions, the officials were allowed entry only after they showed their identity cards and were frisked by the resort guards.

A Haryana Police team led by a Deputy Superintendent of Police also checked the bonafides of the Punjab Vigilance officials. A large number of workers of Akali Dal, who had come from Punjab, burnt effigies of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to protest against the raids.

The VB team led by Superintendent of Police Jagdish Singh Kahlon was also accompanied by police personnel and commandos.

The team first went to the Udyog Vihar Police Station for completion of formalities, including informing the local police and showing them the search warrants issued by the Kharar court.

An Akali Dal spokesman said that they had only asked the VB team to follow the law by not allowing them to videograph and photograph the premises as the warrants issued by the court only mentioned search.

The VB officials can videograph and take photographs only after obtaining directions from court as they had done in the case of Sukhbir’s Chandigarh house, the spokesman said. — PTI

Raids motivated: Sukhbir
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 13
The Managing Director of Orbit Resorts, Mr Sukhbir Badal, today termed the raids by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau as “politically motivated” and an effort by the Congress government to build a case to fight the forthcoming Lok Sabha poll.

Talking to The Tribune soon after sleuths of the bureau raided the Gurgaon-based hotel project, Mr Sukhbir Badal, MP, said if the state government really wanted to unearth the disproportionate assets, it would have raided all 13 premises for which it had secured the permission from the court.

By raiding one property at a time and after some gap, it merely trying to send a political message with an eye on the forthcoming Lok Sabha poll, he said. He said the hotel project was started in 1989 and initially it was mired in a controversy. However, the project was cleared by court.