WEDNESDAY, JULY 03, 2024
Team Herald
PANJIM: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) filed 888 pages chargesheet in the 2022 land grabbing case linked to grabbing of 625 square metres of land belonging to Mark Lobo and family at Assagao, by forging the old Portuguese-era documents.
This is the fifth chargesheet filed by the SIT specially constituted in June 2022, to investigate land grabbing cases in the State. Around 110 land grabbing cases had come to light till date and are being investigated.
More chargesheets are in the pipeline, according to SP (SIT-Land Grabbing) Rahul Gupta, IPS.
Five persons have been named as accused in the chargesheet filed before the Mapusa Court. Two of them i.e. Raju alias Rajkumar Maithi of Miramar and Mohammad Suhail, a native of Davangere, Karnataka and residing at St Inez-Panjim, are alleged masterminds behind several other land grabbing cases.
The SIT has named Damodar Sinai Cacodkar and his wife Gulab, both residing at Ponda, who were allegedly sold the property through the fake sale deed as well as Amrut Govekar from Anjuna, who bought the property from the Cacodkars as accused in the matter.
The land grabbers allegedly prepared forged documents in the name of Anthony Luis Michael Lobo of Miramar and executed a fake sale deed dated 1951. The land grabbing was done during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Lobo, family who resides in Mumbai and also own a house in Miramar came to know of the land grabbing only when their family lawyer came across a public notice in a local newspaper stating that the family’s ancestral land is for sale and alerted them.
In January 2023, the State government appointed one-man commission headed by Retd Justice of Bombay High Court V K Jadhav to probe land grabbing cases reported in the State. Justice Jadhav submitted his report to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant in November last year.
Last week, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had stated that the government will amend the land related laws in the forthcoming Monsoon Session of Goa Assembly so as to prevent cases of land grabbing, and penalise the land grabbers, as per recommendations of one-person commission.
Sawant had also stated that all unclaimed ‘no man land’ which were grabbed by the fraudsters forging Portuguese era documents, will be taken over by the government and around 110 land grabbing cases will be heard in a single court.
