Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
Aggrieved land owners are openely coming out against real estate gangland and complaints are pouring at Special Investigation Team (STI). So far, massive 1,100 complaints have been received by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) against the gang and 16 First Investigation Reports (FIRs) have been lodged at various police station of city. Interestingly, complainants from rural area also lodging complaint the land-mafia.
City police’s initiative to establish SIT and Property Cell has come as a great relief to victims whose complaints were earlier brushed aside as ‘civil disputes’ by concern police stations. Many middle-class and poor families have lodged complaints at SIT and Property Cell that their only property was forcibly taken over by land grabbers. Now, police will initiate action asp per the law, said a police officer.
The officer further said that that city police have lodged 16 FIRs so far against Gwalbanshi gang alone and some of these FIRs have more than 50 complaints as the FIR was lodged on behalf of Housing Society, he said.
It may be mentioned that accomplices of extended Gawalbansi family were in business of extortion since last many years. The gang have illegally encroached on land plots of citizens in Gittikhadan, Koradi and Mankapur area and allegedly forcing people to pay money to clear their plots. Now information coming to fore that the gang have forcebly enchroached land in town of Nagpur district. Three complaints from Kalmeshwar, one from Gonhi village, town have reached to SIT so far.
Modus operendi
Fake documents, coupled with muscle or money power, have played a dominant role in land grabbing ‘projects’ of Gwalbansi gang. The Gwalbanshi gang had adopted unique modus -operendi with the help of men from neighbouring states. First, they send cattle on the field and after some time constructs huts for labour to live. As the land situated in the outskirts area of city, no land owner visits the land-plots everyday. This opportunity was the gold chance for the gang and they send their men to take possession of land. Later, Gwalbansi sell these plots to labours coming from others states for Rs 10,000 to 50,000.
His second modus operendi was grabbing land by using bogus documents of registered property. He was preparing bogus documents with the help of some agents and were used to register property or create an encumbrance in revenue records. With the help of bogus documents they took over the property and evict owner and also threaten against entering the premises. However, there was not much of action on the complaint lodged by the victims against the gangland in last few years.
Crush the land-mafias, says CP
After observing overwhelming response with hundreds of petitions pouring against land-mafia, Commissioner of Police Dr. K. Venkatesham urged citizens to approach police fearlessly against land-mafia and lodge a complaint. “Victims should immediately rush property cell and loggia complaint against land-mafia,” he said. The Police Commissioner have ordered all Zonal and Police Station level officers to given utmost importance to complaint against land-mafia and crush the menace mercilessly.
Court reject bail to Gwalbansi
Additional District and Session Judge S. S. Das rejected bail application of Dilip Gwalbanshi. He was arrested for abetting to committ suicide Bhupesh Sontakke who ended his life in October 2016. He was booked under Sections 384, 306 and 120(B) of Indian Penal Code.
Defense lawyer argued that the applicant has not committed any crime. He already compromised with deceased Bhupesh Sontakke long prior to his suicide and therefore, he has nothing to do with that suicide and urged for bail. However, prosecution strongly opposed the bail application and stated that Dilip Gwalbansi is the known land-mafiya and pressurise others to act as per his direction by showing fear of force. He is facing many criminal cases. If bail is granted to this applicant, witnesses will not come out to give statements due to his fear. After hearing both side, the court rejected the bail application.
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