Ponty a controversial figure in business world

He had interests in fields ranging from liquor to real estate to films

Ponty Chadha, who was killed along with his brother after both sides fired at each other today, was a controversial figure in the business world and had interests in fields ranging from liquor to real estate to films with industry pundits pegging his group's worth at Rs 6,000 crore.

After the death of their father Kulwant Singh Chadha, Ponty and his brothers Hardeep, who was also killed, and Rajinder were jointly managing Wave Inc, formerly known as Chadha Group.

Ponty, whose real name is Gurdeep Chadha, had hit the headlines earlier this year when the I-T department conducted searches at his premises covering 13 locations in Delhi, including the posh Sainik Farms, Lajpat Nagar, New Friends Colony, and in six locations in Noida, Moradabad and Lucknow.

He was apparently close to Samajwadi Party but switched to BSP when Mayawati had assumed power and became the sole distributor of liquor in Uttar Pradesh.

The senior Chadha started his business with a small jaggery mill and in 1968 started his group, which later got actively involved in food processing, paper manufacturing, sugar, distilleries, power manufacturing, bottling plants, real estate as well as film distribution.

The group's recent focus has been on real estate and film distribution businesses.

The Centre Stage Mall in Noica Sector 18 is the first shopping mall in the National Capital Region. The group's malls in Kaushambi, Lucknow, Moradabad and Ludhiana had become a brand in itself.

The Wave Inc's properties include residential properties in Mohali, Moradabad, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad and upcoming Wave City Centre in Noida.

They also owned Wave Industries (Dhanaura), AB Sugars (Dasuya), AB Grain (Gurudaspur), Chadha Papers (Bilaspur), Manorama Papers (UP) and Wave Beverages (Amritsar) among others.

Wave Inc's film distribution arm distributed films like Kahani, Murder2 and No Entry in Delhi and UP.

The group also ran a bottling plant for an international softdrink major besides three distilleries in Punjab and UP.