WPRs’ 48 kanals land right misused by mafia
*100 mutations seized from official’s house
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, July 1: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has come across a major land scandal involving Revenue Department and police officials, some politicians and others who got agriculture land allotted on the names of West Pakistani refugees to which they were entitled, got the title converted through manipulations, took power of attorney on own or other names and then sold it to earn huge profits.
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Sources told the Excelsior that the ACB teams holding investigations into what could turn out to be one of the biggest land scams in Jammu have come across a unique modus operandi used by the Revenue officials and certain influential persons including police officials and political leaders who involved the West Pakistani refugees by misusing the Government rights given to them for allotment of 48 kanals of agriculture land for the cultivation purposes.
“There was a provision made by the Government that the West Pakistani refugees who were earlier denied citizenship rights in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir will be allotted 48 kanals land for agriculture purposes. The police officials and politicians dealing with property business used to lure the Pakistani refugees and with the help of Revenue officials got 48 kanals agriculture land on their names at certain prime locations,” the sources said.
The refugees used to be paid a meager amount and the influential persons took power of attorney and other papers from them. After getting some development done in the area using their influence, the officials-cum-property dealers disposed of the land at handsome amount, thus, earning huge profits.
This land was not meant for sale, the sources said.
Revenue officials whose names have so far figured in the investigation list of the Anti-Corruption Bureau include Ms Rifat, Shakeel Ahmed, Pranav Dev Singh, Akeel Ahmed, Susheel Birdi, Amit Upadhyaya, Altaf Hussain, Javed Ahmed and Naseem Khan and a retired teacher Vijay Kumar.
However, the names of influential persons including police officials and politicians engaged in the property business are under investigation of the ACB, the sources said, adding the names will be incorporated in the First Information Report (FIR) after corroborating evidence against them.
However, they said, there has been enough evidence against the Revenue officials that they facilitated resale of the land allotted to the West Pakistani refugees by tampering with the record and overstepping their authority.
“Whether these Revenue officials did this with the backing of their senior officials or not is matter of investigations,” they said, adding they are being called for questioning and cross-examination. Besides taking legal action against the Revenue officials, the ACB is likely to write to the administration for disciplinary action under Government rules against them.
The West Pakistani refugees, whose names were used by the influential persons for allotment of 48 kanals land, were paid meager amount by the mafia and pressurized to sign power of attorneys and other documents to secure their land.
Significantly, during investigations of the case, the ACB sleuths have recovered 100 such mutations from the house of one of the Revenue officials.
The land scam, as per the sources, was confined to Jammu district.
Some of the West Pakistani Refugees whose names had been used for allotment of land told the ACB officials that they were given Rs 50,000 only and the mafia made them to sign the documents like powers of attorney etc.
Scores of such West Pakistani refugees were used by the mafia to procure the land, the officials said.
It may be mentioned here that the West Pakistani refugees who settled in Jammu after migration from Pakistan in 1947 were denied citizenship rights by the Government. However, they got the rights after abrogation of special status of erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019.
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