Probe agencies must pull out all stops to expose shady dealings
Land was not a prized possession when Goa was liberated from the Portuguese yoke. Many Goans owned land of different sizes but there were no takers. Slowly the ‘outsiders’ began to arrive in Goa, including tourists and civil servants, from the central government. All fell in love with the nature-blessed state and wanted to have a dwelling here; an apartment, a house, a mansion, a bungalow… Whatever they could afford! And then the tussle began for acquiring best parts of land in Goa, the preferred ones being along the seaside or in any of the many serene villages here.
Goa, however, is a small region with a limited area of 3,702 sq km. It was therefore natural that the land – the best of available land – ran out soon. Some of the prime lands were still unsold, but their owners had either expired or residing outside Goa. This was a golden opportunity for land-grabbers, the scamsters who used all their ‘skills’ and with the help of some officials in the key government departments, generated fake land ownership documents, so as to facilitate fraudulent sale of such lands.
The raids carried out last week by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) at multiple locations in Goa in connection with a probe into an alleged major land scam are the continuation of the ongoing investigations into such frauds. The ED stated that this entire investigation carried under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) helped in uncovering property documents estimated to be valued at over Rs 1,600 crore including forged title deeds.
A large part of this scam – allegedly orchestrated by a nouveau riche politician who had contested from Cumbarjua assembly constituency as an Independent candidate in the 2022 Goa assembly election – is nothing short of a large-scale conspiracy to illegally appropriate land belonging to rightful owners through fraudulent means including impersonation, the creation of fake documents and tampering with revenue records. It is said that this politician acted on behalf of some land purchasers from Delhi, Haryana and other places so that people from outside Goa could acquire these properties below market price. The search of his office and residences revealed documents of immovable properties worth over Rs 600 crore.
In 2022, when the Minister for Town and Country Planning released a list carrying the names of applicants of converted tenanted farmlands coming under the suspended Outline Development Plan for Parra, Arpora and Nagoa, it included the name of this politician. The gamut of various exposed and unexposed land scams in Goa is so vast that the investigating agencies may have to work very hard, for sending the fraudulent sellers of land behind bars. And then there could be many influential individuals involved in such frauds.
In the recent past, the state Director General of Police was transferred following allegations that he exerted undue pressure on his subordinates to allow the forceful demolition of a house in Assagao village. In yet another shocking revelation, an allegedly illegal deed of purchasing a bungalow at Aldona by the Chief Secretary that was built on an agricultural property, was exposed. Finally Suleman Siddiqui Khan, an accused arrested for land-grabbing, charged a sitting MLA for his involvement in land scam. However, the allegation went uninvestigated.
A special investigation team (SIT) formed by the government to probe the illegal land-grab cases has exposed a number of land scams. It is now up to the government to ensure that the guilty goes punished. Only then the hard work put in by the probing agencies will have some meaning.
