Even though the Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch has put a number of dubious builders behind bars in State capital Bhubaneswar, still the city is a breeding ground for many land sharks, whose illicit activities have turned into a menace.
These people have taken advantage of their nexus with local police and revenue personnel, which the common man is finding it tough to battle. This land mafia is rampantly selling off or grabbing prime vacant lands with forged documents.
In one such example, a property located at Mouza Pandra, Khata No. 1062, Plot No. 169 /1591 (0.130 decimal) was owned by Radhanath Mohapatra of Sahukheta under the Kisan Nagar police station in Cuttack district.
After Radhanath’s demise when his family wanted to develop the land, from document verification it was found that one Rana Pratap Patra (55) and his wife Saraswati Patra of Airport Road in Bhubaneswar, in connivance with one Dilip Kumar Parida and others, have cunningly managed to execute an agreement of sale in their favour on 29/ 4/2016 for the above land for Rs 20 lakh, stated Radhakanta’s son Susanta Kumar Mohapatra in a complaint lodged with the Badagada police.
The Badagada police have lodged an FIR (0427) on 12/ 12/2021) under Sections 419, 420, 465,471 and 34 of IPC on the basis of the complaint. But still the accused are still moving scotfree.
It might be mentioned here that the accused couple Rana Pratap Patra and his wife have fraudulently constructed a building on land ( Plot no 857/1998 near Airport Road by grabbing Lingaraj Temple land.
Former Revenue Secretary Bishnupada Sethi has mentioned these in a letter (RDM-IRB-MISC-0024- 2020- 28099) dated September 23 to the Khordha Collector that the property of Lord Lingaraj has been wrongly recorded in favour of private persons. Since the property is ‘Debottar’ it is unalienable.
He also asked the Endowment Commissioner to examine the record and suitable action.
However, despite their repeated frauds of land grabbing with bogus papers, the accused Patra couple is yet to be arrested, which points to an unholy nexus.