The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday registered a money laundering case against Jay Prakash Bangarwa, kingpin of a land grab case in Bikaner involving private entities including a firm reportedly linked to controversial businessman Robert Vadra.
Agency sources said a case under Prevention of Money laundering Act (PMlA) has been registered and accused persons will be summoned soon. Taking cognizance of a set of 18 FIRs by Rajasthan police relating to land grab in Bikaner, the ED registered the money laundering case.
The State Government had in January this year cancelled the mutation of 374.44 hectares of land, after the land department claimed to have found that the allotments were made in the names of “illegal private persons” on the basis of forged documents. While cancelling the mutations, the State Government had said that these were not issued by the Commissioner, Colonisation, Bikaner.
Sources said the agency suspected huge amounts of money was laundered in this case by persons purchasing land at throwaway prices.
The ED registered the case taking cognizance of State police FIRs registered in August last year following a compliant by the local tehsildar.
land in 34 villages of Bikaner, to be used for expanding the Army’s firing range in the area, was grabbed by the land mafia by using forged and fabricated documents in connivance with land department officials.