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The Central Bureau of Investigation was likely to question the father-in-law of Sarobjit Singh, son of Chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Buta Singh, as the agency claimed calls from his cellphone were traced to alleged hawala dealers.
The CBI has also sealed five shops in Mumbai belonging to the alleged hawala dealers Madan Solanki and Dukhsingh Chauhan, who is an accused in the bribery case against Sarobjit Singh and is on the run, and the material seized from there has been handed over to the Enforcement Directorate for investigations. "We might question Sarobjit Singh's father-in-law. According to investigations, he used his father-in-law's mobile to make calls to hawala operators and other accused," Joint Director (Western Region) Rishiraj Singh said in Mumbai.
The CBI had roped in Enforcement Directorate to help investigations of a bribery case involving Singh and trace Chauhan. "We have also sealed five shops in Mumbai belonging to the hawala operators Solanki and Chauhan. The shops have been handed over to ED for further investigations," Singh said. Chauhan was earlier arrested under the Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities (COFEPOSA) Act and spent over a year in jail between 1995 and 2000.
A CBI team is in Bangalore searching for the third alleged hawala operator Shamalal Chaudhari who was to received the money from Chuahan and transfer it to Delhi to Sarobjit alias Sweety Singh.
The CBI arrested 40-year-old Sarobjit on July 31 for allegedly demanding a Rs one crore in bribe from a Nasik-based
contractor Ramarao Patil to close a case with thh Commission against him. Three others including Anu Begi, the middleman and two hawala operators, who were said to be working for Sarobjit, were also arrested.
Begi, according to the sources, had told the probe agency that Buta Singh was also in the know-how about the case, a charge denied by the Chairman of the Commission. CBI Director Ashwani Kumar had earlier said that if need be they would also question Buta Singh.