Slug: Ongoing Probe
Vadodara: Dahod police on Wednesday arrested four officials — two former in-charge taluka development officers (TDOs) and two others — in connection with the ongoing probe into mass irregularities in land documents in the district. The accused allegedly issued certificates which was not within their authority.
They were identified as C M Bariya and D K Sangada, who were in-charge TDOs, assistant TDO B S Amaliyar and circle officer M K Taviyad.
They were remanded in police custody for six days. With this, the total number of officials arrested in the case went up to seven. In all, 25 persons have been arrested in the case so far.
The arrests were made in connection with the offence relating to the land scam involving around 200 land survey numbers in the district. Dahod police have been investigating a series of incidents of bogus property documents being prepared using fake certificates.
The irregularities that have come to light so far include the conversion of land to non-agricultural land, the transfer of land owned by tribals, dubious entries in property cards, adding govt land to private plots, and others.
The officials arrested on Wednesday were involved in the preparation of documents for the conversion of non-agricultural land to agricultural land. According to police, they did so even when this was not within their authority in many cases. The conversions at times even crossed the limit of conversions allowed per year.
According to police, the work for dubious conversions was done either to expedite the procedures or for malpractice. The names of the officials cropped up during the investigation of other accused in the case as well as during the investigation of documents of various land conversions.