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.
On April 5, the ED had informed Judge Nagpal that it has found fresh evidence indicating Sisodia's involvement in the alleged excise scam, and the investigation is at a crucial stage. The court had extended AAP leader's custody till April 17 in this case.
In three separate incidents, the Customs Officials posted at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport have arrested three persons who were supplying 3 kg gold worth Rs 1.68 crore. A Customs Official said that all three are Indian nationals who arrived from Middle East. They were intercepted and held on the basis of intelligence inputs.
A soldier died of a gunshot wound at around 4.30 p.m on Wednesday. He was on sentry duty with his service weapon. The weapon and cartridge case from the same weapon was found next to the soldier, it said. The gunshot wound was near the right temporal region. He was immediately evacuated to the Military Hospital, but succumbed to his injuries.
Alok Kumar, DCP Special Cell, said: "On April 8, acting on a secret information, the police laid a trap near Ghazipur Subzi Mandi and two key members of the syndicate were finally held with 2 kg of heroin." During questioning, Mohammad Alam disclosed that he had been supplying heroin for the last two years to different people in Delhi, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.
In the last 24 hours, 441 doses were administered. The country has so far administered 220.66 crore vaccine doses. The active cases stand at 0.09 per cent and the recovery rate is 98.72 per cent.
"During checking, the police recovered 23 packets of heroin, weighing 24.295 kg, concealed in the enclosure of their car windows," the DGP said, adding that another chunk of 12 packets of heroin, weighing 12.620 kg, were recovered from the location disclosed by the accused.
