Revenue Records Scam; Recovery of Rs 26 lakh
STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: In a much publicized missing revenue records scam, wherein Jammu Police and Revenue authorities jointly carried out raids at 21 locations of 13 property dealers and serving & retired officials of Revenue Department and arrested four persons besides effecting recovery of cash around Rs 26 lakh and a large number of official documents, the Sub-Judge Jammu (13th FC) Suhseel Singh has extended five days police remand of four accused namely Sadeeq Poswal, a property dealer of Channi Himmat, Mohammad Bashir, retired Tehsildar, resident of Janipur; Dharampal, retired Girdawar from Sarore and Ghulam Rasool, retired Girdawar hailing from Sunjwan.
Two more Patwaris arrested; total arrests reach 6
JAMMU: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the revenue scam has arrested two more patwaris in connection with the missing record. Those who have been arrested include Bashir Ahmed, resident of Panjgrain, Nagrota, presently staying at Sarwal locality and Sushil Kumar Sharma, resident of Akhnoor, presently at Ghrota.
With the arrest of two these accused, the total number of arrests are at six. Sources informed that there is a long list of accused whose names have figured during the probe.
Earlier, these accused were on 8-day police remand. Last week, Jammu Police had also framed a six-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe as names of senior officials also surfaced during the investigations.
The SIT is headed by SP Headquarters Ramneesh Gupta while SDPO East DySP Syed Zafar, SHO Channi Himmat, Inspector Deepak Katoch, Chief Prosecuting Officer, Pooja Nijan, a sub inspector and a head constable are the members.
Now the police remand of these four accused have been further extended for 5 days.
“The record seized during raids on February 20 in the residences of former revenue officials is being scrutinised by the SIT members and special expert committees,” sources added.
“As per initial reports, the arrested persons have made several disclosures during questioning and named few property dealers and government officials who were involved in sale and purchase of thousand kanals of encroached/grabbed state land,” sources added.
“The property dealers whose names are revealed are on the SIT’s radar and their properties and businesses are also under scanner,” sources said, adding, “the list of names is ready and the arrests can come anytime soon.”
Following the suspicious disappearances of Jamabandis, Lathas and other land records in Jammu South, 21 joint police-revenue teams raided houses and offices of many land grabbers, property leaders and revenue officials in Sunjwan, Chowadhi, Greater Kailash, Sanjay Nagar, Janipur, Gujjar Nagar, Bahu, Sidhra, Trikuta Nagar Extension and Satwari area in Jammu and Sarore in Samba District.
The persons raided upon were allegedly involved in murky land deals, forgery, destruction of revenue records, land grabbing, encroachments over state land; etc, based on the inputs received from various sources.
The raids followed the investigation in FIR 182/21 registered on November 7, 2021 in Police Station Channi Himmat regarding missing of revenue records viz. Lathas, Masavis of village Chowadi and Sunjuwan of Tehsil Bahu.