Ghaziabad authority lodges six FIRs against land mafias

The officials said these are the first FIRs to be lodged by the authority under the anti land mafia campaign ordered by the state government

In a first, the Ghaziabad development authority (GDA) has lodged six complaints for filing FIRs against encroachers who have taken over nearly 30,210 square metres of land worth Rs 126.65 crore.

The GDA officials said the land mafias have encroached upon nearly 30,000 square metres of government land in Ghaziabad. (Sakib Ali /HT Photo)

The officials said the complaints were lodged in different police stations of Kavi Nagar, Sahibabad, Indirapuram and Loni for action against encroachers. The officials said these are the first FIRs to be lodged by the authority under the anti land mafia campaign ordered by the state government.

“Three FIRs will be lodged at Kavi Nagar and one each in Indirapuram, Loni and Sahibabad areas. This is the first action against land mafias by the authority. We had earlier identified nearly 54.31 hectares of authority land that has been encroached upon. The action for freeing up the land is underway,” said Dayanand Prasad, authority’s officer on special duty.

The authority has identified and named nearly a dozen persons in the six FIRs.

According to official records, of the 54.31 hectares that has been encroached upon, nearly 21.38 hectares is caught up in litigation. Of the remaining 32.93 hectares, 4.31 hectares has been freed up until now and the six FIRs were lodged in this connection.

The encroached land has a market price of nearly Rs 22,100 to Rs 66,500 per square metre, as per the prevailing circle rates.

In connection with the anti-land mafia campaign, the district administration has also identified the top 10 land mafias which has control of nearly 19.05 hectares of government land.

In the first phase of the anti-land mafia campaign, officials of the district administration were asked to gear up as only 131 hectares could be freed up. Then, a total of 130 FIRs were lodged by the district administration against different persons while another 1,369 revenue cases were also registered.

The campaign was launched across the state after the Bharatiya Janata Party government under chief minister Yogi Adityanath assumed office in March. It was one of the pre-poll promises of the BJP, apart from tackling crime and cracking down on illegal slaughterhouses.