Former ADA secretary quizzed

Sleuths from the crime branch on Wednesday interrogated former secretary of the Allahabad Development Authority (ADA), Vandana Tripathi in connection with a multi-crore land scam, wherein, land belonging to Indian Railways was illegally sold to private builders in Katka area of Jhunsi. SP (crime) Brajesh Mishra told TOI “ The crime branch on Wednesday summoned Vandana Tripathi for interrogation who was the ADA secretary in 2016. She was quizzed for more than two hours.” He added that no arrests were made on Wednesday. The SP also said, “The crime branch has also summoned the then ADA vice-chairman Devendra Pandey on December 18.” . As per police reports, the land mafia had sold over 41 beegha of land belonging to the railways in Katka to private builders, in connivance with ADA officials, revenue department and administrative officials. The matter came to light after a case was registered against two private builders. On November 26, police had arrested six people in connection with the scam against charges of forgery of official documents and criminal conspiracy. When the senior administrative officials came to know about the forgery of documents, a probe was ordered by the divisional commissioner following which a case was lodged with Jhunsi police station under appropriate sections. Later, the probe was handed over to the crime branch and six arrests have already been made in this regard Police also said that the crime branch has been probing the role of officials of various government departments closely and nine people have been arrested in connection with the case. After ensuring arrest of six land mafias and three revenue officials, the crime branch has started quizzing the ADA officials to ascertain their roles in the multi-crore scam. The sleuths of the crime branch had on Tuesday arrested former tehsilar of Phulpur Ashutosh Kumar Singh and former chief revenue officer, Bhaiya Lal Saroj in connection with the case.