FIR against Ghaziabad Development Authority official and 5 others for 2007 land fraud

GHAZIABAD: A Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) official and five Indergarhi residents have been booked in connection with an alleged land fraud in 2007 on Saturday, police said.
Another former senior GDA officer, who had allegedly connived with the accused to acquire a piece of land — a cemetery — for constructing a road connecting Govindpuram with Indergarhi in a fraudulent manner, was also booked in the case, but his name was later removed from the FIR, police added.The officer, police said, had also helped the accused to acquire another authority’s land for the work.
According to the FIR, in 1994 the GDA had started constructing a road — number 4 — connecting Indergarhi with Govindpuram but the project was stuck due to the presence of a cemetery on the proposed route. The Islamiyo Intjamiyan Talimaat Vikas Samiti, which had moved the court seeking a stay on the GDA project in 1994, said members of the minority community were opposed to the project but the GDA wanted to complete it.
“We filed a plea in the Ghaziabad court in 1994 but failed to reach court during the hearing so the judge had cancelled the application. Later, in 1998, we filled a plea in Allahabad high court and named five persons, including Md Farukh, one of the accused booked on Saturday, as our representative in the case. In 2007, the HC issued a stay order directing the GDA not to remove the burial ground. Later, Farukh settled the matter with the GDA and also signed a paper handing the land over to the GDA,” Samiti chairman Harsat Ali told TOI.
According to Ali, Farukh received a GDA land in Govindpuram in return for the favour.
Recently, the Samiti members submitted a complaint against Farukh, four other residents of Indergarhi — Aamna, Mishakina, Wajid Ali and Jahid Ali — and two GDA officers for fraudulently acquiring the land. Subsequently, an FIR was registered against seven people under the IPC Sections 420 (cheating) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) at Masuri police station. However, the name of a former senior GDA officer was dropped from the case on Sunday, police said.
“An investigation is underway and we will ask the GDA to submit a report on the project. We will also ask the GDA to provide a list of officials who had worked on the project as well,” SP (rural) Iraj Raja said. A GDA spokesperson, TOI spoke to,, however, said they were not aware of any case that was lodged against any official. “Right now, most of the officers (who worked on the project) have been transferred. We are unable to give any further information about the project,” he said.