Goemkarponn desk
PANAJI: Only some of the more than 650 land complaints that have been submitted to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) (Land Grab) over the course of 30 months are being looked into.
According to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s response in the Assembly, the SIT has received 658 complaints in total since its establishment in 2022. Out of these, 72% have been transferred, and only about 19% have been closed or registered for an investigation.
The information, which was sent in answer to MLA Carlos Ferreira’s highlighted LAQ, said that 480 complaints were moved as organized land grabbing was not the subject of them. For additional action, these instances were sent to the appropriate district superintendents of police (Sps).
The greatest number of complaints, 435, was received in 2022. There were 196 complaints in 2023 and 27 complaints up until July 13 of this year.
In 2022, 106 complaints were either closed or recorded, with 16 first information reports (FIRs) being filed and 52 complaints incorporated in the FIRs. Of these, 38 were resolved as being of a civil character. A total of 24 complaints are still awaiting investigation out of the 305 instances that were forwarded to the relevant district SPs.
Thirteen complaints were resolved in 2023 for the same reason, five formal complaints were filed, and two incidents were included in the filed formal complaints. We are looking into 15 complaints in total.
One formal complaint has been filed in 2024, and one FIR has been filed so far. A total of 44 FIRs have been filed by the SIT, spanning instances from 2010 to 2021 with the largest number of 27 FIRs filed in 2022.
The suggestions made by the one-man commission to stop more land grab cases won’t be presented right away. The Chief Minister declared that it wouldn’t be tabled until after it had been fully implemented. According to him, “the report will be placed upon comprehensive implementation of the same.”
