The Punjab vigilance bureau on Thursday arrested Mohali district forest officer (DFO) Guramanpreet Singh and a personal contractor, Harman Hummy alias Lucky, on graft costs.

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The vigilance arrested the DFO from his home in Sunny Enclave, Kharar, whereas Lucky was arrested from his home in Sector 36, Chandigarh.

The arrests had been made after World Wide Immigration Consultancy Services (WWICS) senior director Devinder Singh Sandhu lodged a grievance on the chief minister’s anti-corruption helpline, saying they had been demanding a bribe for favoring him in sure initiatives.

In the grievance, Sandhu stated the forest officer approached him on a number of events, by varied mediums, to demand bribes.

“After I resisted giving the bribe, he got a false complaint lodged from forest range officer (RO) Ranjodh Singh at Nayagaon police station on April 24, 2022, for violations of the Punjab Land Protection Act (PLPA),,” he stated, including that he carried a video recorder to an April 30 assembly with the DFO to reveal him.

“Over the next few days, on the directions of conservator of forest Vishal Chauhan, Singh also asked me to pay 1 crore upfront to them for the farm project. Thereafter, 10 lakh on a monthly basis and also 5 lakh for sale of each land parcel/farm was sought,” alleged Sandhu, who maintained that he was on no account violating Section 4 of PLPA as his land was agricultural.

Sandhu had claimed that he had uploaded the video sting as proof on the Punjab CM’s anti-corruption helpline.

On May 9, police booked Col BS Sandhu (retd), the managing director of WWICS, and his aide Tarsem Singh for constructing unlawful farmhouses at Masol village. The FIR was registered underneath Section 4 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act after they had been discovered levelling forest land illegally to develop farmhouses, Fair Heavens, on round 100 acres.

Vigilance bureau SSP Gaganjit Singh stated that the arrests of the DFO and the personal contractor had been made after verifying the grievance and video.