Author: Ajit Joshi and Mohamed Usman
Publication: Mumbai Mirror
Date: August 07, 2007
URL: http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article§id=15&contentid=2007080720070807025701406e57179c5
Police investigations reveal some of Mumbai's
multi-millionaires posed as slum dwellers to grab 225 sq foot flats under
slum rehabilitation scheme
They are some of Mumbai's richest people.
They live in lavish bungalows, drive the most expensive cars and wear clothes
that cost, apiece, more than a one BHK in Mira Road. Yet, they acquired apartments
meant for the city's poorest of poor under the slum rehabilitation scheme
by posing as slum dwellers.
Mumbai police's Economic Offences Wing in
close to nine months of investigations has found out that at least 68 people,
including actor-filmmaker Sanjay Khan'swife Zarine, her daughter Farah, Tops
Security's owners Rahul Nanda and Major R G Nanda, Rahul's wife Sunita and
Major Nanda's wife Ranita, and Trig Security's owner Captain S Salaria, forged
papers to prove that they lived in a slum in Juhu and were thus eligible to
get free houses under the state government's slum rehabilitation scheme.
While Farah did run a workshop in one of the
hutments in the slum, even by that connection she could lay claim to being
a slumdweller and get a free house.
The Khans, the Nandas and others like them
possibly found the name of the slum they claim they were residents of -Garib
Mazdoor Sangh Zopadpatti - a little embarrassing to associate with.
So, the multi-storied building that has come
up in its place, and in which each of them now has a 225 sq feet flat, is
proposed to be renamed Juhu Taj Society.
Not that anyone of these so-called slum dwellers
are ever going to live there. Most of them have their managers and senior
members of staff occupying the flats.
The EOW has already recorded statements of
all the accused, including the Khans, the Nandas and Captain Salaria. A few
MHADA officials, who helped these celeb-slum dwellers take on the identity
of poor, homeless people in desperate need of government dole, have also been
booked.
"We are still in the process of collecting
evidence. We are not going to let off any government officer or celebrities
involved in the scam," said Assistant Commissioner of Police, Housing
Unit of EOW, L P Khaparde.
But there is a problem. Khaparde said the
Slum Rehabilitation Authority, the umbrella body entrusted with providing
housing to slum dwellers, is not cooperating in the investigations.
"We are asking for more documents, but
SRA officials are not forthcoming," he said.
The EOW registered a criminal case on October
31, 2006 against the builders of Juhu Taj Society, Kailash Chandra Agrawal
and Shailesh Sawla, architect Rajendra Pagnis and promoter Dewendra Garje.
Investigations revealed that MHADA surveyor
Shirish Shrungarpure and Land Officer Suryakant Deshmukh had declared 68 of
close to 130 applicants eligible for flats in Juhu Taj Society without any
scrutiny of papers.
So brazen was the attempt to subvert the system
that 52 applicants produced papers from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation
to support their claim of being slum dwellers when the land belonged to MHADA
and the BMC had no role to play in the project. Three Andheri K-Ward (west)
officers - B K Choudhury, J D Joshi and G K Rathod - have been booked in this
connection.
Investigators believe a certain Siddique Abdul
Kadar Sheikh took Rs 8 Lakh from Major R G Nanda to prepare the bogus documents.
Sheikh is also believed to have secured all
the relevant permissions from various government departments to make Major
Nanda and others of his family slum dwellers.
Sheikh was arrested April 17 this year along
with Agrawal, Sawla, Pagnis and Garje.
According to an EOW estimate, the Juhu Taj
Society scam cost the government close to Rs 11 crore.
When Mumbai Mirror got in touch with Farah
Khan, she said she does not own any apartment in a slum rehabilitation building.
"I don't know what you are talking about.
We had a workshop 20 years ago in a slum cluster and we gave it to somebody.
The property is not in our name. I do not know how our name figures in the
case."
S Salaria said the Juhu Taj property was transferred
to him by a resident of the Garib Mazdoor Sangh Zopadpatti.
"There is no paper signed by me. No property
is in my name. It belongs to a guy who had been living in those slums since
1962. He transferred the property to us. We still do not have the possession
of the property," he said.
Rahul Nanda's mobile phone was out of reach.
He could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.
