VISAKHAPATNAM: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Wednesday took the jailed Visakahkhapatnam Rural tehsildar (MRO) M Sankara Rao, the prime accused in the tampering of revenue records reported from Madhurwada Kommadi, into police custody for further investigation.
After seeking police custody Sankara Rao, the SIT was granted permission by the court. It is learnt that Rao was taken into custody for a week.
Sankara Rao was suspended by the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration on the recommendation of collector Pravin Kumar after a probe made by the district administration revealed that he had tampered the documents of settlement fair adangal (SFA), RSR resurvey settlement register (RSR) and changed government and urban land ceiling (ULC) in the name of private persons for kickbacks.
Two weeks after a criminal case was registered against him, Rao was arrested on June 7 during ACB raids on his properties in his native village of Bobbili, Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhaptnam.
The ACB slueths also unearthed properties worth `5 crore.
The SIT sources said Rao’s interrogation might lead to more details about the other culprits of record tampering.
173 more complaints
The SIT received 173 complaints on Wednesday, raising the compliant count to 1,232. The officials filed memos to another nine persons on Wednesday in three cases which had already been filed at Arilova police station in connection with tampering of records. SIT officials found that records of an additional 53.15 acres of land were tampered at Kommadi, which increases the affected land count to 395.23 acres.