68 people charge-sheeted in J-K rehabilitation scam

A charge sheet has been filed against 68 people, including four officers of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), in a three-year-old criminal conspiracy case related to rehabilitation of dislocated shopkeepers here.

Jammu and Kashmir State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) filed the charge sheet in the court of Special Judge Anti-Corruption against the SMC officials and other beneficiaries, a spokesman of the SVO told a news agency here. He said that a case was registered in 2012, pursuant to the outcome of an inquiry in which it had surfaced that some officials of SMC had allotted shops in Block-C Hazouri Bagh to non-deserving persons against huge consideration of money.

“During probe, it has been found that then Assistant Revenue Officer Ab Rahman Taploo, then Ward Officer Lal Chowk Farooq Ahmad Mir, then Ward Officer Jawahar Nagar Ghulam Mohidin Misger and then TGR Assistant Abdul Aziz Pir of SMC had prepared a fraud list of 120 dislocated shopkeepers for rehabilitation in Block-C Hazouri Bagh in criminal conspiracy with brokers - Zahoor Ahmad Wani and Mushtaq Ahmad Kak.

“During the probe nothing was found in the records of SMC, which could remotely suggest that any of the 120 enlisted beneficiaries had a shop, kiosk or khokha at the time of their so called dislocation in the year 1993. “It was found that none of the enlisted 120 beneficiaries had been a payer of shop rent or temporary ground rent or municipal shop tax to the Corporation as per the records of Revenue Section of SMC. “The dislocation of beneficiaries or demolition of their shops was not even established by the records of ‘khilafwarzi’  Section of the Corporation,” the spokesman said.