Wanted for 13 cases and on run for 2 yrs, ‘mastermind' of Goa land-grab scam arrested
The Goa Police on Friday arrested Mohammal Suhail, alleged to be the mastermind in a multi-crore land-grabbing scam in the coastal state.
Police said in a statement that Mohammad Suhail (48), alias Michael, who had been absconding, was arrested at around 4.30 pm near a petrol pump in South Goa's Quepem by a Crime Branch team. Suhail, a resident of Pilar in Goa, is originally from Karnataka.
Police said he is a 'habitual offender' and was previously arrested for his alleged involvement in at least 13 cases related to land-grabbing.
'He was absconding for the past two years,' an officer said.
The Goa government formed an SIT on June 15, 2022, to investigate cases of illegal land transfer and land-grabbing. The SIT probed 44 FIRs involving more than 100 properties — nearly 1.5 lakh sqm of land — and made 56 arrests, including some officials from the Archives Department. The state government had appointed a commission of inquiry, headed by former Bombay HC judge Justice V K Jadhav (retd), on September 9, 2022, to probe the land-grabbing cases.
The commission in its report detailed how government records had been tampered with in a 'systematic and organised' manner, and forged sale deeds with Portuguese-era calligraphy were inserted into the records, allegedly 'in connivance with the staff of the Directorate of Archives and Archaeology'.
In several cases, the accused hatched a conspiracy and forged land records and documents in their own names or of their associates, often in collusion with officials in the state's archives department, and fraudulently executed sale deeds to third parties after illegally acquiring properties.
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