||Black and White Digital News||

||Parvinder Singh June15, 2024||

In a significant breakthrough, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has uncovered one of the largest land scams in Jammu and Kashmir, involving the fraudulent usurpation of Custodian land in Asarwan, Mishriwala, and Bhalwal areas of Jammu district. This scam, implicating a nexus of land grabbers and officers from the Custodian, Revenue, and Police departments, has led to the registration of multiple First Information Reports (FIRs).

The ACB’s investigation revealed that thousands of kanals of Custodian land were illegally appropriated by land grabbers in collusion with corrupt officials. These lands, situated in Asarwan, Mishriwala, and Bhalwal, were tampered with in the revenue records and subsequently sold to various buyers. The land grabbers, working hand-in-glove with the officers, facilitated this scam by exploiting their official positions and manipulating legal documents.

According to the press release, the ACB initiated a formal verification process which uncovered that power of attorneys (POAs) were obtained from numerous POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) refugees, promising them additional lands and monetary incentives ranging from INR 5,000 to INR 50,000. These POAs were then used by the conduits of the land grabbers to manipulate records and insert additional chunks of Custodian land into the revenue records. These lands were fraudulently sold to various individuals, including members of the gang itself, thereby inflicting a massive financial loss on the government.

The fraudulent scheme involved the use of FORM 3-A (Form Alf), which was manipulated by the officials of the Revenue and Custodian departments. This abuse of power by the officials facilitated the illegal sale of land, further deepening the corruption within these departments.

The ACB’s diligent efforts have led to the registration of five formal case FIRs in the Police Station Central Jammu and Kashmir under various charges, including the Prevention of Corruption Act, criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, and fraud. The investigation, under the supervision of the Learned Special Judge Anti-Corruption Jammu, has involved extensive searches and raids. Armed with search warrants, ACB officers, independent witnesses, and magistrates conducted operations across sixteen locations in Jammu and its surrounding areas, which are still ongoing.

The investigation has named several officials, including former Tehsildars Amit Uppadya and Shushil Birdi, and other officials such as Rafat Javed Ahmed, Akeel Ahmed, Pranav Dev Singh, Mohammad Aslam, Shakeel Ahmed, Altaf Hussain, and Amjad. These individuals have been implicated for their roles in the illegal mutation and sale of Custodian land, leveraging their official capacities to perpetrate the fraud.

The ACB press release also indicates that the investigation is far from over. The Bureau is actively verifying and uncovering more instances of usurped Custodian land, which continues to expose the deep-rooted corruption involving the land mafia and officials from the Revenue, Police, and Custodian departments.

This significant discovery by the ACB highlights the pervasive corruption within the land administration and the lengths to which the land mafia and their official accomplices will go to exploit government resources for personal gain. The ACB’s ongoing investigation and the legal actions against the perpetrators underscore the government’s commitment to rooting out corruption and restoring integrity within its institutions.