Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 28: The State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) today produced challan in major embezzlement scam worth Rs 22.11 crores involving 75 persons including the then Collector Land Acquisition-cum-Additional Deputy Commissioner, Pulwama Adil Rashid Naqash after establishing the charges against them.
An official handout issued by the Vigilance Organisation said that the challan was today produced against 60 accused persons in the court of Special Judge Anti-Corruption, Pulwama, Haq Nawaz Zargar while the SVO has taken up the matter with the Chairman Jammu and Kashmir Bank Limited for accord of sanction against 14 serving officers and officials of the Bank and producing challan against them.
The investigation of case was conducted by a Special Investigating Team (SIT) of the Vigilance Organisation headed by SP (Anantnag-Baramulla-Pulwama range) and the case was proved against 75 accused including the then Collector Land Acquisition/ Additional DC Pulwama Adil Rashid Naqash, Land Acquisition Clerk, Parvez Indrabi of DC office Pulwama and officers and officials of J&K Bank, Awantipora and Lethpora branches including the then Branch Head of Lethpora in league with the private persons Farukh Jahanzeb alias Rinku son of Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din Bhat alias Mahi Pandit R/o Awantipora, Showkat Ahmad Dar and others.
The case pertained to embezzlement of Rs 22,11,89,400 from the official account of Collector Land Acquisition Pulwama illegally opened in business unit Lethpora of J&K Bank over a period of 18 months with full knowledge and active connivance among the conspirators.
“The money was initially transferred to the accounts of private persons on the basis of fake and fraud authority letters and then distributed between the accused conspirators as well as misutilized for raising immovable assets,’’ the handout said.
Investigations by the Vigilance Organisation also revealed that the accused Farukh Jahanzeb alias Rinku had forged the signatures of his maternal uncle Ghulam Mohammad Bhat.
In league with the officers and officials of J&K Bank Awantipora, Rinku managed to open a fake and forged account in the name of his maternal uncle and mother and utilized the account to manage withdrawal of embezzled money from the account after managing transfer to it on the basis of fraud and forged authority letters from the accounts of Collector Land Acquisition Pulwama in J&K Bank Lethpora.
After getting transfer of money to their accounts on fraudulent authority letters, the accused Farukh Jahanzeb and Showkat Ahmad Dar also transferred money to the accounts of accused ADC/CLA Adil Rashid Naqash and LAC Parvez Indrabi in cash or in kind on different occasions.
Investigations also revealed that the accused Showkat Ahmad Dar also co-opted the various land owners of Kandizal and adjoining villages in the conspiracy and distributed the ill-gotten booty among these co-conspirators of Kandizal who finally managed to grab approximately Rs 9 crores out of the embezzled amount.
During the course of investigation, the properties approximately worth more than Rs 8 crores which included land, shops and residential houses were attached under the amended provisions of J&K Prevention of Corruption Act.
More than Rs 1,43,00,000 were freezed from the accounts of accused persons and their accomplices in over 50 accounts.
After the Government accorded sanction for launching prosecution against the serving public servants, the Challan of the case comprising of approximately 2000 pages was produced before the Court of Special Judge Anti Corruption Pulwama, Haq Nawaz Zargar against 60 accused persons today.
The investigation of the case was taken up as a challenge by the Vigilance Organization Kashmir during the course of which thousands of documents were seized through 159 seizure memos in addition to the seizure of computers from different locations and their examination through the Experts of Forensic Science Laboratory. Statements of more than two hundred witnesses were also recorded.
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