In a development that might fuel a fresh political controversy, Dehradun police raided houses of three persons on Friday evening who are considered close to the former Uttarakhand Cabinet Minister Harak Singh Rawat.
The raids were conducted as regards alleged forged registration of 20 acre lands at Shankarpur in Sahaspur, Vikasnagar.
Acting on the complaint received from one Ranveer Singh, son of Ranjot Singh, regarding forged registry of land, a case under appropriate sections of IPC was registered against four persons- Virendra Kandari, Narnedra Waliya, Satyam Srivastava and Bheemsen.
On Friday, upon receiving search warrant from the court of additional chief judicial magistrate, Vikasnagar, teams from Sahaspur conducted raids on the house of Virendra Kandari, located near Vidhan Sabha, Nehru Colony; Narendra Waliya’s house located in Rishikesh and Beemsen’s house located in lajpatnagar, New Delhi, said Vikasnagar circle officer Chandra Mohan.
The team members are learnt to have collected evidence like the power of attorney of the same lands and some other land- related registry documents from their houses. All the accused were being grilled over the same issue, Mohan added.
Sources said that SIT, formed by the state government over the issue, had thoroughly investigated the case and the course of the investigation revealed that Sushila Rani whose name figured in the land registry record had allegedly used a false power of attorney and sold the land to Virendra Kandari and Narnedra Walia.
Virendra Kandari later sold these lands to Harak Singh Rawat’s wife Dipti Rawat and lakshmi Rana. Sushila Rani died in the meantime after which the real owner of the land Ranveer Singh had registered a complaint in police station, Sahaspur.
Mention worthy, the Chief Minister Harish Rawat had vowed to expose all land related forgeries through special initiatives of the police right after re-assuming charge as the CM following the May 10 floor test.
Observers had commented then that the CM’s target was beyond any shadow of doubt his former cabinet colleague Harak Singh Rawat who had engineered the defection of the Congress MlAs in a bid to topple his government in March when the budget session of the Assembly was on.