Nellore: Nellore rural sub-division police on Tuesday arrested four persons in the `60 crore land scam, in which 15.47 acres of government land abutting national highway was converted as patta land, by tampering land records online. Venkatachalam tahsildar I. Srinivas Prasad lodged a complaint on August 3 about the tampering of records.
In his statement, he said some persons logged into the government portal related to land records - webland - and transferred 15.47 acres of land belonging to the government in Kumkumpudi and Kakuturu villages in Venkatachalam mandal on July 30. The land was transferred in the name of various persons by using two logins and digital signatures.
Both the YSRCP and the TDP have been blaming each other for the scam after the incident created a flutter in the district.
Based on the complaint, Venkatachalam police registered a case and launched an investigation.
A team of police led by Venkatachalam CI Jaganmohan Rao and SI Karimullah arrested four persons identified as Nallagatla Koteswar Rao, Katta Penchala Bhaskar, Borugadda Geetha and Gurubrahmam in Ongole on Monday after thorough investigation. The team seized a laptop and other equipment used for tampering the records from Geetha, a computer operator. A detailed technical investigation was underway in the case, said DSP Y. Harinath Reddy.
Harinath Reddy said Geetha, who worked as a computer operator in Podalakur mandal in Nellore district some time ago, played a major role in tampering the land records after she was transferred to Gudlur mandal of Prakasam district. Geetha was acquainted with one of the accused Bhaskar of Podalakur mandal while working at Podalakur.
On his request, the woman created land records for 1.16 acres on the name of another accused in the case Nallagatla Koteswar Rao as he had no documents for the land though it was in his possession.
Koteswar Rao paid Rs2 lakhs for changing the land records through Bhaskar then. On July 30, when Gudlur tahsildar was on leave due to health issues, Geetha transferred 15.47 acres of land to Koteswar Rao using biometric and digital signatures of the deputy tahsildars of Vinukonda mandal in Guntur district and Gudlur mandal of Prakasam district. The accused transferred the land in the names of Boddu Bujjamma, Boddu Masthanaiah, Manemma, and N. Koteswar Rao of Venkatachalam mandal.
Harinath Reddy appealed to the people to call on his mobile number 94407 96317 if they had any information on such land scams while assuring to maintain secrecy with respect to their identity.
