Two govt employees arrested for tampering land maps

Mumbai police have arrested two government employees for allegedly tampering with land records related to coastal regulation zones (CRZ) and no development zones (NDZ). The arrests were made by a special investigation team (SIT) looking into the matter. The two arrested individuals are city survey inspector Sambhuraje Wable, 47, and senior clerk Sanjay Dhodke, 54. They are accused of helping builders and developers manipulate important land documents. Interestingly, Wable was previously a complainant in a case involving land grabbers. Both men were presented in court and have been remanded into police custody. Earlier, police took several other suspects into custody, including a civil contractor and various clerks. The investigation revealed that some maps in the city survey office falsely indicated the existence of constructions as of December 31, 2019. Wable is accused of issuing duplicate copies of these maps, which had forged signatures. Authorities found 165 altered maps in total across different areas. The tampering was first reported by a farmer named Vaibhav Thakur back in 2016. He raised concerns about illegal construction on his land, which had been misclassified as developable in government records. Unfortunately, local authorities did not act on his complaints until now.