The police have registered cases against four people in a sensational fraudulent sale of a big chunk of land located near the prestigious Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) academy in Mussoorie. The police have filed cases against Raghu Pratap, Vikas Chandra, Vikas Thapali and Mohan Singh Thapali under section 420/467/468/471 and 120 B of Indian Penal Code (IPC). The illegal sale of a property located near prestigious defence academy has raised furor recently and allegation of involvement of high and mighty in the land deal were being made.
The Inspector General (IG) of police, Garhwal range, Sanjy Gunjyal said that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was constituted in the high profile case. In the investigation it was revealed that the culprit took advantage of the fact that the land which was acquired by the government for setting up an academy for ITBP in the year 1988 was not transferred in the name of the paramilitary force and hence hatched a conspiracy to sell it fraudulently.
The SIT acted on a complaint lodged by one, Pravesh Kumar Bakshi, a resident of 11,Tarun Enclave, New Delhi. In the complaint he had claimed that Vikas Chandra and others had sold land located in Kyarkuli in Mussoorie to him for `32 lakh. In the investigation it was revealed that the Raghuraj Singh had purchased a land measuring 795 Bighas and 17 Biswas on December 18, 1933 from the Administrator General of Uttar Pradesh. Raghu Pratap the son of Raghuraj Singh sold this land to OlAK BRAMWEll CRAVEN on December 23, 1964. In the year 1988, this piece of land marked, Khewat 65, in revenue records was acquired by the Government along with adjoining 161.79 acres on May 31, 1988 and was handed it over to the ITBP for setting up its academy.
However mutation of this land was not done in the name of force and in revenue records this land showed in the name of Raghu Pratap causing the perpetrators of the land fraud a to hatch a plan for selling it illegally. The purchaser of the land got suspicions when the land was not registered in his name despite his repeated insistence.
Gunjyal said that a cash reward of Rs 10000 would be given to Sub Inspector (SI), SIT, Mahendra Singh Chauhan and his team for working out the case with diligence.