ANANTAPUR: In a drive against land grab mafia in YSR district, police busted a 6-member gang and invoked the PD Act against them. They were indulging in creation of fake land pattas to grab rich and valuable government lands, police said.
Police also seized fake seals and documents of the revenue department and fake pattas sold to the public, leading to complications. These lands were worth crores.
The state government is acting tough against such gangs also as several tahsildars and other revenue employees were involved in such rackets issuing fake pattas for highly priced lands during the TD rule.
Two tahasildars were suspended and the service of one was terminated in this connection.
Badvel Urban police arrested a gang of six persons involved in land grabbing by use of fake seals and documents.
"By making fake documents, the gang was selling the same to the gullible public. Land grabbing in the will be viewed seriously and stringent action will follow, whether it is government land or private property,” police said.
In the present case, a land grabbing racket was busted with the arrest of six of its members, who were operating in Badvel, Gopavaram and surrounding mandals. On May 9, a complaint was received from the tahsildar of Gopavaram mandal that a few people were making fake documents of government lands and resorting to land grabbing.
A case was registered and an investigation launched by the district police.
The arrested were Bathina Ravishankar of Raghunadhapuram, Badvel mandal; Manyam Baburao of Gopavaram mandal; Dhara Ravikumar alias Tuck Ravi of Sumitra Nagar; Kolavali Venugopal, Gandhi Nagar, Badvel town; Gollapalli Pushparaju of Thippanampatti village; and Punganuru Murali, Gandhi Nagar of Badvel mandal.
Fake seals pertaining to Badvel, Gopavaram, B.Kodur, revenue divisional office, Rajampet, 79 fake annexure forms, 31 fake house pattas, 66 fake certificates, 2 fake DKT house pattas, 379 empty annexure forms and 60 fake passbooks were seized from the gang.
In addition, distribution registers pertaining to Gopavaram tahsildar's office, 10 DKT files, 180 Aadhar cards, photocopies and 33 empty land cess receipts were also seized from the gang.
Preventive Detention Act will be invoked against the arrested persons involved in the case, police said.
