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Out on bail Lal, Singh, family begin foot journey to Vaishno Devi shrine
Singh said that he would pay obeisance at the shrine and would pray before Mata Vaishno Devi to give him strength for serving the people
Out on bail in a money laundering case, former minister and chairperson of Dogra Swabhimaan Sanghthan, Choudhary Lal Singh and his family embarked upon foot from Kathua for Shri Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Katra, a distance of around 130 km.
“Younger son Divyachander Pratap Singh had made a wish to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi that he would visit the shrine on foot from our Kathua residence after I get bail from the court. He informed about his wish and we told him that we would also accompany him”, Singh told reporters in Kathua.
“While we decided to accompany our son to the shrine, well-wishers and people also joined us. And, let’s see how many join us enroute to the shrine,” he added.
Singh said that he would pay obeisance at the shrine and would pray before Mata Vaishno Devi to give him strength for serving the people.
Amid ‘Z” security cover and beats of a brass brand, Lal Singh with his family and supporters left Kathua on Thursday afternoon for the cave shrine.
On November 23 last year, a local court had granted interim bail to Lal Singh, subject to certain conditions, which was later converted into a regular bail.
Singh was being probed by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case registered against an educational trust being run by his wife and former MLA Kanta Andotra.
On November 18, Lal Singh was sent to 14 day judicial remand to Jammu district jail at Ambphalla by an anti-corruption court case till December 1.
On November 23, principal sessions judge Sanjay Parihar had granted interim bail with certain conditions.
The money laundering case stems from an October 2021 charge sheet filed by the CBI in this case which alleged criminal connivance in the issuance of land between January 4 and January 7, 2011, without mentioning details in respect of violation of the ceiling limit of 100 standard kanals imposed under Section 14 of the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976, thereby giving undue pecuniary advantage to educational trust.
Based on this, the educational trust acquired multiple pieces of land of about 329 kanals (16.64 hectares) vide three gift deeds executed on January 5 and January 7, 2011, the CBI charge sheet claimed.
Singh, a two-time MP and three-time MLA, switched from the Congress to the BJP in 2014.
He was also a minister in the last PDP-BJP combine, which collapsed in June 2018 after the latter pulled out of the combine citing worsening security scenario in the region.
Before the unceremonious fall of the combine, Choudhary Lal Singh had resigned from the BJP following an outcry over his presence in a rally in support of the accused in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old nomadic girl in Kathua’s Rasana in January 2018.
On November 29, the Enforcement Directorate had provisionally attached immovable assets worth Rs1.21 crore in the form of land acquired by R B Educational Trust (RBET).
