Keonjhar: Police busted a fraudulent land sale racket Thursday as it arrested a middleman on charge of selling an endowment land through land conversion at Lakshmipasi mouza under Sadar tehsil in this town.
The accused middleman identified as Kailash Chandra Parida was arrested three years after the victim Umesh Chandra Jena filed an FIR over the illegal land deal. Police produced him in court, Thursday.
Four others including Kishore Kumar Barik, Prasanna Kumar Barik of Lakshminarayanpur Sahi and Ashok Chakra of Buladuar Sahi of Keonjhar have been absconding after the incident.
The land was fraudulently sold in 2013-14. However, the land buyer Umesh Chandra Jena lodged a complaint in the Town police station in 2018 after he came to know about the fraud.
Police registered a case 273, dated-October 3, 2018 on charge of fraud and other relevant sections of IPC.
However, police dilly-dallied in arresting the accused which raised doubts in the minds of public over the attitude of police. The accused were allegedly found roaming scot free in Keonjhar town and again getting involved in illegal land deals.
Reports said Jena purchased six decimal of land on plot no8 and khata no-6 in Lakshmipasi mouza from Kishore Kumar Barik in 2013-14. Jena purchased the land after going through the land documents shown to him by Barik’s agent Kailash Chandra Parida.
Jena paid three cheques amounting to Rs 1.80 lakh to Parida and Rs 50 lakh to the son of Barik in 2013. However, when he examined the land papers in 2014, he found that he had been duped. He discovered that the land he had purchased is in the possession of a temple shrine, Sri Sri Raghunathjew Bije, Nijagad.
The accused persons had fraudulently carried out conversion of the land without the prior sanction of the endowment authorities and had sold it to Jena in the name of Odisha government.
Jena lodged complaints in various forums and finally at Town police station, October 9, 2018.
An advocate Ashok Das said that several mysteries regarding fraudulent land deals in the area will be unraveled if the involvement of Sadar tehsil office and the district sub-registrar office is examined during investigation.
PNN