Islamabad, (Anantnag) July 4: The State Vigilance Organization (SVO) has produced a challan against former Chief Town Planner Kashmir, against fraudulently acquiring land in Pahalgam tourist resort in South Kashmir.
 The case against former Chief town Planner, Mir Naseem Ahmad was registered in 2008.
 While verifying the allegations regarding misuse of official position by the officers of Town Planning Organization, a Vigilance team found ‘conferment of undue benefit’ upon them while recommending change of land use related to the land falling under planning sub-zone of Master Plan in Pahalgam, an official said.
 “While the plan was being formulated, some top bureaucrats acquired land in ecologically fragile areas with the help of the land mafia and the accused. For their personal interest, they later managed to designate these fragile areas as permissible in the land use map of the master plan,” an official said.
 He said the committee headed by the accused had allegedly resorted to misrepresentation, manipulations and distortions whereby it proposed that sub zone A-14, an inaccessible area on the other side of Sheesh Nag Nallah to be de-notified to permit construction of hutments and other facilities while ignoring the sub-zone A-13 having sizeable population and being contiguous with the already de-notified area.
 The subsequent probe, he said, revealed that a former Chief Town Planner, Mir Naseem, had ‘fraudulently’ acquired land measuring 29 Kanals 13 Marlas under survey number 825, 827, 835 and 836 in 1999 through gift-deed in the name of a trusted aide.
 “After fraudulently acquiring the land by proxy, the plan was conceived to arbitrarily change the land use to induce sharp increase in the value of land in sub-zone A-14 for personal gains,” he said.
 The accused he said mislead the Government by hatching a conspiracy in omitting the proposal of the de-notification of sub-zone A-14 from the draft master plan made available to general public and thus the plan was approved in 2006 in the form proposed by the accused, which actually recommended change in land use.
 Pertinently, a committee comprising Mir Naseem Ahmad, the then Chief Town Planner; Hamid Ahmad Wani, the then Town Planner; and Nazir Ahmad, the then Assistant Town Planner, was constituted in 2004 to prepare the master plan for Pahalgam.
 The State Vigilance Organisation had already registered a case, FIR. No. 27/2008 P/S VOK, against the accused officers and investigation were taken up. The SVO officials had reportedly recovered documents relating to the acquisition of land at various places by the accused.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 4 Jul 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
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