AUGUSTO RODRIGUES
ASSAGAO/ANJUNA: While the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Goa Police, constituted to crack down on alleged land grab cases, has made little meaningful progress, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) appears poised to conclude its inves-tigation and act decisively against the accused.
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The SIT has so far filed only one charge sheet and regis-tered four First Information Reports (FIRs). Significantly, no FIRs have been registered in nine cases reported by gauncars of the Anjuna and Assagao comunidades.
In contrast, the Enforce-ment Directorate’s Panjim Zonal Office has, under Pro-visional Attachment Order (PAO) No 09/2025, provi-sionally attached seventeen properties measuring a total of 6,18,709 square metres, along with two flats.
“The case has already been registered in New Delhi, and once the investigation is completed, all land illegal ly acquired by the accused will be handed back to the respective comunidades,” a senior ED official said on condition of anonymity.
Anjuna gauncar Roysal D’Souza voiced deep frustra tion with the police response but expressed relief at the ED’s intervention. “The his-
tory of our police is best left unspoken. The good news for most of us gauncars is that the ED is finally forcing crim-inals to think twice before attempting such land grabs,” he said.
D’Souza estimated that over three lakh square metres of An-juna comunidade land had been usurped. “Whatever land we get back through the ED will be God-sent because it belongs to the community. The concept of a comunidade is spiritual – it is not something that can be fooled around with,” he added. According to ED documents accessed by 0 Heraldo, of the nine cases in which the police failed to register FIRs, two properties measuring about fifty thousand square metres belong to the Assagao comunidade. Nine properties, to-gether measuring twenty thousand one hundred and twen-ty square metres, belong to the Anjuna comunidade, while one property measuring three thousand six hundred and thirty square metres belongs to the Ucassaim comunidade. Trevor Mascarenhas, a gauncar of the Anjuna comuni-dade, believes the outcome might have been very different had the police been allowed to investigate independently. “There is no proper investigative system in place. Everyone in authority wants a piece of the cake that does not belong to them,” he alleged.
Mascarenhas filed Writ Petition No 883 of 2023 along with Writ Petition No 430 of 2023 before the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court, together with other Anjunagaun-cars. The petitions allege that more than five lakh square metres of comunidade land were usurped using forged doc-uments.
Taking a cue from the Anjuna gauncars’ legal action, Assagao comunidade President Nelson Fernandes ap-proached the ED after repeated attempts to secure police action failed.
“I first went to the Anjuna police station. When they did not register my complaint, I approached the SIT, which also failed to act. I even met the Chief Minister, but that proved useless. When I realised that the ED had taken up the An-juna comunidade case, I decided to approach them,” Fer-nandes said.
Following the ED investigation, Shivshankar Mayekar has been arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. ED records further reveal that movable and im-movable properties belonging to Sudesh Parsekar and Ye-shwant Sawant have also been provisionally attached un-der the same Act..
An extract from an ED document states that the PMLA investigation carried out so far has revealed that, as a re-sult of the commission of scheduled offences, Shivshankar Mayekar, Yeshwant Sawant, Sudesh Parsekar, Sanjay Sirsat and others acquired various immovable proper-ties, the cumulative market value of which comes to Rs 1,243,35,05,000 (approx Rs 1,243.35 crore), in their names and in the names of their family members.
The document further states that the accused, along with others, sold some of the properties and villas constructed on these lands, generating additional proceeds of crime amounting to Rs 43,99,08,250.13 (approx Rs 43.99 crore).
According to documents perused, the ED provisional-ly attached, on November 27, 2025, nineteen properties. belonging to both comunidades, collectively valued at Rs 12,68,63,83,494 (approx Rs 1,268.64 crore). Fernandes said he is aware that the case is being handled in New Delhi and that questions have been raised regarding properties where construction has already been completed or is still being carried out illegally.
“Within hours of getting the land back, the comunidade will hire bulldozers and demolish all illegal constructions. Comunidade land cannot be robbed. It belongs to society, and at some stage it may be handed over to institutions working for public welfare,” Fernandes declared.
He also said the comunidade has written to the Town and Country Planning Department and other concerned authorities, urging them not to issue occupancy certificates for constructions on the disputed properties. “We have at-tached ED documents to support our stand,” he added.
