Two officials arrested for forging land documents
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, May 28 2022:
Two officials, allegedly involved in issuing forged land documents to encroachers in Waithou area particularly along the sides of Imphal-Dimapur road, have been arrested and an enquiry initiated against them.
Significantly, most of the documents possessed by residents settling in and around Waithou were found to be forged.
The arrested officials are Md Allaudin, former Mandol of SDC Lilong but presently posted at SDO Nungba office, and Soibam Luke, former head draftsman of the directorate of settlement but retired in 2018 .
The development comes after chief min ister N Biren expressed remorse when many houses were found constructed on the sides of Imphal-Moreh road on April 30 as he was returning from Khongjom after taking part in the Khongjom Day observance.
The chief minister had also stated that houses were constructed on forest land and all could be encroachers.
Informing the development during a press conference held at old secretariat Saturday, secretary (revenue) N Kheda Bharta said that a special drive to rectify land laws has been continuing since the April 23 incident at Waithou and verification process for land documents is on not only for Lilong area but also for other locations of the state.
The drive is currently progressing at various areas of Bishnupur and Langol areas of Imphal West district.
Detailing media persons about the findings of the drive conducted at Waithou area, N Kheda said during the verification conducted by a joint team of Lilong SDC/SDO and forest department under the supervision of directorate of settlement and DC Thoubal there were tell tale signs of the record map of 1964 scratched and redrawn afresh.
Dubious land documents too were found issued to residents settling in protected forest area at Waithou.
Accordingly, two officials involved in issuance of illegal land documents have been arrested by police and initiated an enquiry, he said and disclosed identities of the arrested officials as Md Allaudin and Soibam Luke.
Altogether 43 illegal or fake land documents from 17-Chaobok revenue village have been detected and 20 families settling nearby the village identified as encroachers during the drive, N Kheda Bharta said adding that law will take its own course against those possessing illegal documents and encroachers.
He also said that around 50 copies of old land maps printed in Kolkata in the year 1984 were found reproduced and the erroneous act was detected when these forged copies were compared to copies which they could not reproduced.
Both the reproduced and original maps were displayed before media persons during the press conference.
The press conference was also attended by DC Thoubal Ahanthem Subash and director (settlement) P Gojendro.