Committee on Land grabbing urges Govt. to file criminal cases

Bangalore, May 10 (UNI) The Legislative Committee on Land grabbing, probing encroachment of government land in and around Bangalore city, which had identified over 30,000 acres of valuable land encroached by 'land Mafia', today urged the state government to initiate criminal proceedings against offenders.

Speaking to newspersons Committee Chairman A T Ramaswamy, said that it had found complicity of land grabbers that included politicians, officials and liquor contractors. The encroached land belonged to various state departments including revenue, forest, wakf, urban authorities and Inam.

He said that the committee had found that land measuring from one to hundreds of acres had been encroached and in its interim report also recommended the state government to take punitive measures against offenders.

"The state government so far has auctioned 578 acres of recovered land from the land grabbers and generated revenue of rupees 271 crore. Instead of auctioning the government should reserved the land to utilise it for public purposes. At least the government should give better publicity during auctions to generate better return," he said.

Mr Ramaswamy also informed that the land grabbers had adopted several methods including forging documents besides and creating bogus papers.

UNI