Panaji: While welcoming the state government’s move to setup a special investigation team (SIT) to probe cases of land grab, Congress has also demanded that justice to be done to the probe by dropping a cabinet minister with links to land-grabbing cases.
Former state Congress president Girish Chodankar also demanded that government officials linked to the fraudulent sale of properties need to be suspended or sent on leave till the investigations are complete.
“If Goa chief minister is serious he should drop the minister to give a free hand to the SIT and confidence to land-losers to come forward and file complaints before the SIT. Chief minister must immediately sack the minister and also send officers involved on forced leave till the investigations are completed,” said Chodankar.
However Chodankar refused to name the cabinet minister.
He said that if the minister is not dropped there is a possibility that the he could influence the SIT team who are state government employees and as such land-losers will feel insecure to come forward.
The former state Congress chief has also demanded that the SIT probe must be monitored by the Goa bench of the High Court of Bombay.
“I wonder how SIT will do justice when a sitting cabinet minister is involved in huge land grabbings. The chief minister should not use the SIT selectively and allow those close to BJP to go scot-free. If the intentions of the chief minister are clean, I dare Pramod Sawant to have the SIT monitored by the high court on a weekly basis,” said Chodankar.
He said that the constitution of the SIT to investigate Illegal land grab using forged documents is a welcome step taken by the government. He claimed that when he had raised the issue on earlier occasions he was mocked by BJP.
The SIT has already made three arrests and has identified more than 60-70 cases of ancestral property being illegally sold.
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