KENDRAPADA: During a day-long search, vigilance officials seized many incriminating documents from the tehsil offices of Derabishi, Garadapur and Kendrapada on leasing out of riverbeds for sand mining to notorious gangster Syed Usman Ali alias Tito and his
associates.
Vigilance suspects several public servants extended undue favours to the gangster. Vigilance officials also quizzed the tehsildars and other employees. "Tito and his associates bought vast tracts of valuable land in Kendrapada and its nearby areas. So we raided the district land register office at Kendrapada," said Prakash Kumar Nayak, the deputy superintendent of police, vigilance,
Cuttack.
Earlier, the Special Task Force of the Crime Branch had asked tehsildars of Kendrapada, Mahakalapada, Pattamundai, Garadpur and Marsaghai in Kendrapada district and Dharmasala and Balichandrapur in
Jajpur district to provide them all the information and documents related to sand mining in Kendrapada and Jajpur districts.
Tito, his gang members and some contractors in a clear nexus with Tito managed to get the contracts for construction and repair of roads in Kendrapada. A Congress councillor of Kendrapada
municipality Hijbur Rehman was arrested two years ago for his links with Tito. Recently, Crime Branch officials interrogated him in Bhubaneswar after which vigilance team raided the municipality office in Kendrapada.
Tito, 56, was arrested after an encounter June 30 by the STF. On Wednesday, he was produced in the court of judicial magistrate first class (JMFC) at Rajnagar in another tender fixing case. The court rejected his bail petition. Earlier, the court of sub-divisional judicial magistrate (SDJM), Kendrapada, remanded Tito to police custody for 14 days.
"We demand immediate arrest the sand mining mafia illegally digging up riverbeds without environment clearance and even after expiry of their lease," said Umesh Chandra Singh, a farmers leader of Kendrapada.
Representative image
