PANAJI
Tainted government officer, Rahul Dessai is finally in the police net in the land scam after intense 12-odd hours of questioning on Thursday.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Crime Branch arrested the former Bardez Mamlatdar on Thursday night for facilitating and purportedly masterminding the scam. He is likely to be arrested in other cases of land fraud as SIT and Mapusa police are investigating five First Information Reports (FIRs) in total, so far.
Dessai faces two FIRs by the SIT for an offence wherein he is charged with conniving with a prime accused Royson Rodrigues and his accomplices to forge land-related documents and allow its sale for a whopping amount.
Sources said that Royson had confessed to the SIT that he connived with Dessai to illegally transfer ownership rights.
The government had failed to act promptly against the officer, who was recently transferred to Mormugao despite nearly two dozen complaints filed by various aggrieved parties against him.
The Goan was the first to report on August 23 that neither arrest nor disciplinary action or transfer was initiated against him for all the land misdeeds he is charged for.
Sources said that Desai had ample opportunity to allegedly wipe out evidence against him, if any, from government records.
The SIT had summoned him for questioning on Thursday morning. The officer was arrested for failing to submit a satisfactory defense to allegations levelled against him.
Sources said that Dessai’s call records and messages are being retrieved.
While the authorities overlooked some of his alleged misdeeds in the past, his service records since the date of joining the Goa Government will now be probed into besides his assets.
“We have been given to understand that he could have amassed huge wealth disproportionate to his actual source of income. Our government agency might be roped in to investigate this angle besides his alleged involvement in the land scam,” an official had told The Goan.
