Chandigarh May 3 (IANS) The Punjab Vigilance Bureau has exposed a scam by arresting seven people, including a revenue official, on charges of receiving compensations during acquisition of land on forged documents in Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) from 2016 to 2020.
A spokesperson for the Vigilance Bureau said the main accused has been identified as Bhupinder Singh, Mukesh Jindal, Shaman Jindal, Mukesh Jindal, Praveen Lata, Vishal Bhandari, Sukhdev Singh, Binder Singh and Bachitar Singh.
He said officials of the Horticultural Department, namely Jaspreet Singh, Vaishali, Dinesh Kumar, Rashmi Arora, Anil Arora and Vishal Bhandari are yet to be arrested.
The spokesperson said during the investigation of a complaint, the Vigilance Bureau found that in 2016 the GMADA published notices in SAS Nagar for acquisition of land pertaining to various villages and issued notifications under Section 4 in 2017 and under Section 19 in 2020.
Property dealer Bhupinder Singh, in connivance with officials and employees of GMADA, the Revenue and Horticulture Departments, along with his colleagues Anil Jindal, Mukesh Jindal and Vikas Bhandari started planting guava orchards on the agricultural land by getting land on general power of attorneys.
The spokesperson said during the probe it was found that the main accused, Bhupinder Singh, has taken compensation of around Rs 24 crore for guava plantations for himself and his family members.
Similarly, Mukesh Jindal has defrauded the government by taking compensation of about Rs 20 crore.
Many other persons have also taken compensation from the government illegally by showing guava orchards in their land.
The Vigilance Bureau said the other accused would be arrested soon.
A man was held at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport here for smuggling 1,010 gm gold worth Rs 54,25,205, an official said on Wednesday. The accused couldn't produce any document for carrying such a large quantity of gold.
Just after receiving the message the police informed senior officials, including ADG, law and order and ADG, intelligence. Amid the Chief Minister's zero tolerance policy for crime and operation bulldozer to demolish criminals' ill-gotten property, the threat has come as a big challenge for security officials.
The evacuation process named Operation Kaveri, started on April 23, as apart from INS Sumedha, two Indian Air Force aircraft were sent to bring back Indian citizens stuck in Sudan's capital Khartoum, where civil war broke out on April 15 after its army and paramilitary forces clashed with each other.
The accused were identified as Chife Monday (27) and Igwemma Jame (33), both presently residing in Delhi's Nihal Vihar area. Police said that the accused came to India in 2018 and were staying without valid documents.
Gandhi, now disqualified as a parliamentarian, was convicted by a magistrate's court on March 23 for his controversial remark, "All thieves have Modi surname," made during a political campaign in Karnataka's Kolar in 2019.
The probe agency also informed the court that Hyderabad-based CA Butchi Babu Gorantla, Arjun Pandey, and Amandeep Singh Dhall were also mentioned as accused in the final report, which also included a list of witnesses and documents that were used as support.
