ED arrests Sonepat Congress MLA Surender Panwar, gets nine-day custody

Geetanjali Gayatri/ Mukesh Tandon

Tribune News Service

Sonepat, July 20

Two days after Congress MLA Rao Dan Singh was raided in connection with a bank loan fraud case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the wee hours of Saturday arrested Congress MLA from Sonepat Surender Panwar in an alleged illegal mining case. He was produced in a court in Ambala, which has remanded him in nine-day custody.

Smacks of vendetta

Panwar’s arrest is politically motivated. He served people of Sonepat well, which is why he was elected MLA. The BJP government in Haryana is on its way out. Randeep Singh Surjewala, Rajya Sabha MP

Panwar is the fourth Congress MLA to find himself under the ED scanner. Samalkha MLA Dharam Singh Chhoker has been absconding since May in a money-laundering case linked to the alleged defrauding of home buyers, in which his son, Sikander Singh, was arrested by the ED in May.

On Friday, the ED invoked a 2019 CBI FIR against Haryana Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda, even as it took action against M3M, a top realty firm in the state.

All three Congress MLAs — Rao Dan Singh, Chhoker and Panwar — are seen to be loyalists of Hooda.

The ED’s investigations come in the run-up to the Assembly elections in October — and in the wake of the recent Lok Sabha elections in which the BJP lost five seats. On July 16, at a rally in Mahendragarh, Home Minister Amit Shah had targeted the Congress and accused it of widespread corruption when it was in power in the state.

The Haryana Congress, on its X social media handle, said all three MLAs were being targeted by the BJP because they belonged to Backward Castes.

Meanwhile, advocate Mahadev Maharaj Singh, Panwar’s counsel, said the court had directed the ED to conduct Panwar’s medical check-up daily and give him medicines prescribed by doctors. The court also directed the ED to allow him to meet Panwar daily for half-an-hour at the ED’s office in Gurugram.

The ED had conducted raids on the residences and offices of former MLA Dilbag Singh and Panwar on January 4 and took away documents and other records. Nearly 20 locations linked to the two politicians, both in the mining business, and their close aides were raided in Yamunanagar, Sonepat, Mohali, Faridabad, Chandigarh and Karnal.

Sources close to the MLA said Panwar was summoned by the ED, Gurugram, on Friday. He reached the ED office and was grilled for over 14 hours. Later, the team took him to his residence in Sonepat’s Sector 15 before proceeding to Ambala, where he was produced in the court of District and Sessions Judge Kanchan Mahi.

Advocate Tarun Mehta of the ED said the sitting Congress MLA had been arrested in a case registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), which is based on eight FIRs.

Devender Mann, advocate for the MLA, claimed that it was a political move. The MLA had resigned from the post of director of the company in 2013 and no money had been transacted in his account from the company since.

As per sources, complaints were filed for irregularities and illegal mining in Yamunanagar, Sonepat and other districts in 2013, despite a ban by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), after which the police registered eight mining cases.

Panwar had unsuccessfully contested his first election on INLD ticket in 2014, but won the 2019 election on Congress ticket, defeating former minister Kavita Jain. In 2022, he submitted his resignation from the Vidhan Sabha over threat calls and withdrew it following an assurance that he would be provided with security.