Shivpuri (Madhya Pradesh): The police on Monday claimed to have arrested three youths who set the Nazir branch at the collectorate on Saturday. Superintendent of police Aman Singh Rathore said the culprits had identified themselves as Roop Singh Parihar, Rahul Parihar and Jitendra Pal. Rathore said that he sifted through the CCTV footage immediately after the incident and saw three persons setting the Nazir branch.
A 30-member team was set up to inquire the case and declared a reward of Rs 10,000 each on the criminals. The police had also registered an FIR in connection with the irregularities in acquisition of land for an irrigation project in Pichhore. The FIR had been registered on the complaint of office superintendent of the collectorate Lalit Kumar Sharma against the then withdrawal and disbursement officer Rakesh Kumar Dhodhi, former assistant grade-3 of the land records department Deepak Khatik and Roop singh Parihar of the Water Resources Department.
CCTV footage tells the tale
During the investigation, when the staff of the collectorage also saw the CCTV footage they identified two of the three youths who set the office afire as Roop Singh and Rahul Parihar. It was also revealed that Rahul Singh Parihar was working as a computer operator for Mentana Group of companies that was handling the land acquisition case for a lower irrigation project in Pichhore.
It was Parihar who took Rs 26 lakh instead of Rs 6 lakh by submitting fake bills. The police had registered a separate FIR against him. When the police tried to sew the events, they came to know that the trio was trying to burn the files related to the land acquisition case.
Files were related to scam
The files that a fire destroyed at the collectorate on Saturday were reportedly related to irregularities in payment of relief to the farmers from whom the land was acquired for an irrigation project in Pichhore. A sum of Rs Rs 2,208 crore, sanctioned for the lower irrigation project in Pichhore, included expenses acquiring of the land and other work, sources said.
As the houses and the lands of many farmers came within the submergence area of the irrigation projects, the government arranged for their compensation. A list consisting of the names of farmers who were to be given compensation was sent to the land records department. The department, however, transferred the money to the accounts of those farmers who had neither any land nor any houses within the submergence area.
