A man on Saturday alleged that the Chief Minister’s Office was misused by Salim Raj, the former gunman of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy.
In a press meet held at the Ernakulam Press Club, M K Nazer, his mother Sherifa and brother M K Naoushad, all residing at Thrikakkara North, alleged that K H Abdul Majeed, with the assistance of his brother-in-law Salim Raj, was trying to usurp their family property.
According to Nazer, a few months ago when had gone to the village office to pay land tax for the 116 cents, the official refused to receive it.
“On enquiry, revenue officials said the land is in the name of Elangaloor Swarupam, a royal family in the Edappally area, and we have no right over the land. They said it was on the basis of a complaint by Majeed and village officers’ inquiry that the tahsildar had come up with an order in this regard. However, when we approached the tahsildar with proper documents, he withdrew the order.
On this, Majeed approached the Land Revenue Commission but the order was in favour of Nazer and family. However, a few days after this when there was a change at the helm of the Land Revenue Commission, Majeed gave another complaint to the new Commissioner. He decided that the land belongs to the government and ordered eviction. Later, we approached the High Court and got a stay on the order,” Nazer alleged.
However, later Nazer came to know that the original documents of the land with the Revenue Department were destroyed by officials in the village office with the assistance of the District Collector’s office.
Suspecting that the revenue officials might have done this at Salim Raj’s behest, he said: “When we verified documents with the Revenue Department, some of those were tampered with and some pages were missing. They wanted us to sell the land at lower rates so that they could make profit.”
Recently, they met the Chief Minister in Thiruvananthapuram to apprise him of the controversy.
Chandy had called Salim Raj and heard both the parties out and promised to take necessary action. They also gave a complaint to Opposition Leader V S Achuthanandan.
When they met the Chief Minister again, he allegedly told them that there were no issues but since Achuthanandan was demanding seizure of the land, the government is considering taking action.