For the first time, act has been invoked against private land grabbers in Ahmedabad.
In a first instance of its kind, Ahmedabad district collector and magistrate on Monday invoked Prevention of Antisocial Activities (PASA) Act against two people for grabbing private land in the district.
The duo was involved in five cases of land-grabbing, either individually or jointly. The culprits have been sent to Rajkot and Junagadh jails for grabbing land valued at almost Rs550 crore.
Police earlier had issued look-out notice for Shertha-resident Kamlesh Patel and Ranjit Desai, resident of Chandlodia, in land-grabbing issues. Vijay Nehra, district collector and magistrate of Ahmedabad, issued an order to arrest the duo by evoking PASA on Monday. Patel and Desai had tried to grab around 218 bigha land, which is currently valued at around Rs550 crore.
Modus Operandi:
The culprits, Kamlesh Patel and Ranjit Desai, used to pose as officials of district collectorate and took victims into confidence by promising them conversion of New Tenure Land into Old Tenure Land and agricultural land into non-agricultural land. They also helped their victims get title clearance certificate.
The duo used to obtain 7/12 copy of land ownership and other documents from their victims and made them sign on blank papers, stamp papers and registers. They used the documents to forge power of attorney bearing past dates sell out land to third party.
The victims were also promised more than market rates for their land by the culprits. They feigned that their relatives living abroad are interested in buying the land.
Patel and Desai also paid token amount for obtaining land-related documents and signatures of victims to forge power of attorney.
How the duo was arrested:
Though Ranjit Desai was granted anticipatory bail in Lambe Narayan Ashram case (see box), he was yet to complete formalities with Sarkhej police. Accompanied by Kamlesh Patel, Desai arrived at Sarkhej police station at around 2 pm Monday, where local crime branch arrested the duo in other land grabbing cases filed against them. Subsequently, Ahmedabad District Collector Vijay Nehra on Monday evoked PASA against Desai in these matters. The collector already had evoked PASA against Patel on February 8, 2012.
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