Newly formed SIT to probe land scam in Visakhapatnam region

The Andhra Pradesh State government set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the multi-crore land scam in the Visakhapatnam region. Retired IAS officer Vijay Kumar will be heading the three-member team consisting of retired IAS officer YV Anuradha and retired district and sessions judge T Bhaskar Rao. A Government Order was passed to this effect on Thursday.

The SIT, in its tenure of three months, will be conducting a comprehensive inquiry into the multiple land scam allegations that had surfaced in 2017 in Visakhapatnam, before submitting a report to the government. Cases of land encroachment and grabbing, tampering of land records, and looking into the complaints received from the Visakhapatnam region will be a few key areas of focus of the SIT probe.

Calling the land scam in Visakhapatnam one of the biggest ones in the country, Anakapalle MLA Amarnath Gudivada reminded that Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy kept up his election promise by forming a Special Investigation Team constituted of two retired IAS officials and a retired judge to conduct a probe. Finding fault with the previous TDP government’s move to conduct a state-level probe into the matter, the YSRCP leader, while addressing the media on Friday, said that there was no chance of a fair inquiry when the Chief Minister and his Ministers were themselves accused in the land scam.

Stating that the guilty will not be spared this time around, Mr. Gudivada urged the victims of land scam in Visakhapatnam to lodge their complaints with the newly formed SIT.