LAGATAR24 NETWORK
Ranchi, April 16: Contrary to the claim of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the Cheshire Home land scam that land mafias tampered with the land records, the Ranchi police have submitted a closure report terming allegations as false.
The ED, the premier central agency and Jharkhand Police seem to have locked horns over the investigation of this case involving Jharkhand based top real estate developer Vishnu Agrawal as one of the suspects.
The ED investigating the Indian Army land scam and Cheshire Home land scam has told the special PMLA court that the powerful land mafias and government officials and employees interpolated, tampered/ forged land documents to grab costly land in Ranchi.
“On further investigation, one acre of land situated at Mauza Gari, Cheshire Home Road, PS Sadar, Ranchi is identified to have been acquired by one Vishnu Agarwal with the assistance of other persons, by way of creating forged and counterfeit documents,” the ED informed this in the instant case of land scam.
As per a document in the possession of Lagatar24.com, it is indicated that the Ranchi police have submitted a closure report stating that it was a case of civil dispute. The police are learnt to have concluded that there is no evidence of criminal conspiracy and forgery against the named accused.
Thereafter, the court of Digvijay Nath Shukla of Ranchi civil court is said to have issued a notice to complainant Umesh Gope informing him about the final form submitted by the police. He has been directed to appear before the court on April 27th if he has any objection over the finding of the police.
The said parcel of land measuring over 60 Kattha is situated at Plot no. 28, Khata No. 37, at village Gari on Cheshire Home Road under Sadar police station.
An FIR 399/ 2022 was lodged by the police on the directions of the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ranchi under sections 406, 420, 467, 468, 447, 504, 506, 341, 323 & 34 of Indian Penal Code 1860.
Complainant Umesh Kumar Gope who claims to be the owner of the said land lodged an FIR against Vishnu Agarwal who is the owner of Nucleus Mall in Ranchi besides Punit Bhargav, Bharat Prasad, Rajesh Rai, Lakhan Singh and Imtiyaz Ahmed. Punit Bhargav is said to be close to power broker Prem Prakash who was arrested by the ED in the illegal stone mining case.
Later on, the ED took up this case for investigation.
The ED is closely monitoring the investigation of this case by the police. Well placed sources said that the agency is sceptical about the police investigation. The agency doubts whether the state police were helping suspects by closing this case as false since it will be difficult for the ED to continue the investigation once the predicate agency closes the case in the lack of evidence.
Well placed sources also said that the agency in its investigation has found glaring evidence of documents pertaining to this land and many others were forged to grab the land.
Umesh Gope claims that the said land is his ancestral property registered in the name of his great grandfather Jagdish Mahto. He alleged that the land mafias forged the documents to show that his forefathers had sold this land to one Gangadhar Rai in 1933. He said that land mafias claimed that in 1948 Gangadhar Rai sold this land to one Jagdish Rai and the registry was done at the Calcutta registrar’s office.
The grandson of Jagdish Rai entered into the controversy and he gave the attorney power of this land to Imtiyaz Ahmed and Bharat Prasad. Both of them sold the land to Punit Bhargav. Later on, Punit Bhargav sold the land to Vishnu Agrawal.
Notably, a few days back the ED carried out a nationwide raid against the then Ranchi DC Chhavi Ranjan, Rajesh Rai, Bharat Prasad, Lakhan Singh, Imriyaz Ahmed, Afsar Ali, Ashok Singh, Faiyaz Khan, Manoj Kumar, circle officer Bhanu Pratap, Dipak Kumar, Talha Khan alias Sunny, Virendra Sahu, Ameen Sujit Kumar, Tabrej Akthar, Azhar Khan, Saddam Hussain and Pradeep Bagachi.
