A total of 394 complaints have been registered with Special Investigation Team (SIT) based at Garhwal Range since its inception in October 2014. FIRs have been lodged on 77 complaints relating to land disputes after the officials concerned investigated them. Moreover, 80 people involved in cheating the people on the pretext of providing them with lands have been arrested and sent to Suddhowala Jail, said Garhwal Range IG/DIG and SIT in-charge Sanjay Kumar Gunjiyal on Saturday.
High-level investigations are being conducted on the received complaints and senior police officers are monitoring them regularly, he said, adding that fearing arrest following the FIRs being lodged, the land mafias are intent on reaching compromise with their victims. This vindicates the fact that SIT has instilled fear in the land mafias, he claimed while making it clear that SIT will not play any role in brokering compromises between the land mafias and their victims.
“The trend of the land mafias duping people for lands whose prices keep spiraling is visible across the State. Increasing cases of land forgery involving crores of rupees in various parts of the Range have become a matter of serious concern for the police department and the State Government,” the senior police officer said.
Further, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat has taken initiatives to further strengthen SIT in view of the rising number of land forgery cases.
He met the State DGP BS Sidhu, Principal Secretary Dr Umakant Panwar, Secretary Vinod Sharma and other police officers and reviewed the performance of SIT officials on the registered land dispute complaints on Friday. CM directed the police officers to ensure that such complaints are acted upon and resolved at the earliest. He also said that as part of SIT strengthening process, the retired Tehsildars will be inducted in SIT on contractual basis. It was decided in course of the meeting that revenue land dispute cells would be set up in four districts- Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital from where most of the land forgery cases are reported.