Land-grab case: DC marks probe into SAD leader’s role

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, May 25

Gurdaspur Deputy Commissioner Dr Abhinav Trikha has ordered an inquiry into the alleged role of a SAD leader into a land-grabbing incident at the Gopal Nagar locality.

BJP, Congress and AAP leaders had been claiming that a ruling party legislator was instrumental in instigating his men to grab land in the locality. Leaders of these parties had been holding dharnas for the last several weeks to coerce the administration to mark an inquiry. The DC has now asked an IAS under-trainee officer, Shuakat Ahmed Parry, to hold the investigation and submit a report to the DC in a “time-bound manner.”

However, no officer was willing to go on record as to when the final report will be handed over to the DC despite the fact that it is a “time-bound inquiry”.

Earlier, the inquiry had been entrusted to ADC (general) Tejinder Pal Singh Sandhu, but later the DC revoked the order as the protesters did not see Sandhu as a neutral officer.

The issue had threatened to snowball into a major controversy which, in turn, could have had the administration in a spot. However, before things could go off in a tangent, the DC asked a senior officer to go into the sequence of events leading to the land grabbing.

Parry confirmed that he had started investigations into the matter. “I have asked revenue officials to produce relevant land records. After that I will proceed with the demarcation process. Things will be clear only after a few days,” he said.