In an important development, special investigation team (SIT), constituted to investigate the Rs 300 crore NH-74 land acquisition scam, has arrested eight government officers, including the sacked sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Bhagat Singh Fonia and Kashipur tehsildar Madan Mohan Padliya, and some farmers on Monday following their interrogation by the SIT team. They were later sent to 14 days’ judicial custody at sub-jail in Haldwani after they were presented in the court in Rudrapur. Informing, the deputy superintendent of police Swatantra Kumar who is also investigating the case said that two farmers were also sent to jail over the same charge.
Another police officer privy to the probe into what is being dubbed as the super scam of the state said that SIT had taken the sacked SDM Fonia into custody on Sunday and he had been brought to Rudrapur on late Sunday evening. “All eight persons were taken at SIIDCUl police station where they were interrogated by the team in the presence of some senior police officers. After the legal documents were prepared they were presented before the CJM court in Rudrapur from where they were sent to jail,” he said. He further said that SIT teams are working tirelessly to ascertain the whereabouts of the former special land acquisition officer (SlAO) DP Singh, one of the accused of the multi-crore scam, who is now on the run.
DSP Swatantra Kumar said that teams are raiding several locations to nab Singh.
Meanwhile, police personnel were deployed in plain cloths around the court campus in Rudrapur in anticipation of Singh surrendering before the court on Monday following the rejection of his PIl by the apex court.