Chandigarh: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Saturday alleged that multi-hundred crore sand mining racket being run by chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi through a sting operation, demanded a CBI probe into illegal mining in Channi’s home constituency of Chamkaur Sahib including that on forest land.

Senior SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia while blowing the lid off the multi- hundred crore scam along with audio- recordings which directly implicate the chief minister, said only an impartial probe could reveal the extent to which the chief minister and his family had looted the State exchequer through his personal illegal sand mining mafia. “The total loot by Channi in his 111 day tenure will be more than Rs 1,111 crore”.

The recordings prove the close nexus between the chief minister and his nephew Bhupinder Honey from whom the ED recovered Rs 10 crore in cash and gold recently and prove they were partners in the illegal sand mining business. They also disprove Channi’s assertions that he did not know about the activities of his nephew.

Majithia also released audio recordings of the chief minister’s closest aide and Salapur village Sarpanch Iqbal Singh and his son Binder in which they detailed the entire illegal sand mining operation being run with the chief minister’s blessings. The audio- recordings, which were done by one Darshan Singh who had befriended members of the sand mafia to expose them, even has Iqbal saying the chief minister had told him not to fear anything and even do mining on forest land. It also gave an account of how a forest guard was brow beaten into silence. The recordings show that the mafia was also using boats and fork lifts to mine sand from the river bed.