The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday morning raided the residential premises of former Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) minister and Dogra Swabhimaan Sanghthan (DSS) founder Choudhary Lal Singh in Rajbagh and Kathua in Jammu, authorities said. .
“Two CBI teams began searches at Choudhary Lal Singh’s facility in Kathua city hall 2 and Rajbagh around 7 am,” said an official.
“In Kathua, the officers arrived in three vehicles. Searches are still ongoing. Jammu & Kashmir police are not involved in the raids, ”he added.
On June 25, CBI had registered a Preliminary Investigation (PE) to investigate allegations of land grabbing and corruption by an education trust led by Singh, who had resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2018.
He had resigned from the party following a dispute over the rape and murder of an eight-year-old nomadic girl in Rasana in the Kathua district of Jammu in 2018.
The PE has been registered against RB Educational Trust of Kathua and unknown government employees to investigate allegations of illegal gratification and consideration of others by Kathua district forest and revenue officials in allowing the sale and purchase of forest land.
The EP alleged that bogus land certificates, which fall under the exempt category of the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reform Act 1976, were used by the education fund in its alleged land grabbing activities.
The EP alleged that the trust, beneficiary of such alleged illegal acts, has in its possession large tracts of land in serious violation of the maximum limit prescribed by law.
It also alleged that misinformation was filed in the Jammu and Kashmir (HC) High Court on June 9, 2015 as public interest litigation (PIL) in an attempt to favor the trust, the official said.
Singh and then-Minister of Industries Chander Prakash Ganga in the former BJP-People’s Democratic Party (PDP) coalition government had to resign in 2018 after doubts were raised about their participation in a Hindu Ekta Manch rally organized in support of those arrested in connection to the rape and murder of the girl in Kathua that year.
.
