PANJIM: Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant will on Monday chair a high level meeting to review the investigation of land grab cases.
The CM’s office informed that the meeting will also decide future course of action pertaining to land without owners.
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“A high level meeting will be convened by Chief Minister Goa, Revenue Minister, Chief Secretary, DGP, Revenue Secretary and incharge SIT to review SIT’s progress and to decide further course of action on the lands which were not having any registered owners or the owners had passed away or migrated without doing succession proceeding,” the CMO said, on Sunday night. The meeting is likely to be held on Monday morning at CM’s office in Porvorim or his Official Residence at Altinho.
Among several cases registered with the SIT, in one case it has been revealed that fraudsters forged documents of close to 70 properties, and in majority cases the modus operandi has been the same as mentioned above.
Almost a fortnight ago, the SIT was formed by the Goa government to investigate cases of land grabbing in the State with the first case registered under sections 465, 466, 467, 468, 471, 419, 420 read with 120-B of Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Vikrant Shetty of Margao who was the first arrest in the case was bailed out last weekend after spending five days in police custody followed by judicial custody.
He was arrested on June 18, 2022 and lodged in Central Jail Colvale before his release.
One of the main kingpins Mohammed Sohail of St Inez was arrested on June 21, 2022 and remanded to police custody for five days.
Dhiresh Naik from Bandora, Ponda became the first Government employee to face arrest for conniving with the kingpin to leak confidential documents. A record attendant with the Department of Archives, Naik was arrested on June 22 and remanded to two days of police custody.
He is charged with removing the Look Registers from the Archives Department and handing them to the accused for forging documents.
Fourth arrest, Shivanand Madkaikar from Madkai, Ponda also a government employee was arrested on June 24, 2022. The SIT has so far arrested four persons in connection with the large scale scam and more arrests are expected in the coming days.
“During investigation it is revealed from the accused that there are no legal heirs to some properties as the owners have died or migrated,” it said.
