Vizag Land Scam: Has Chandrababu Pulled Up District Collector?

Visakhapatnam: The Andhra Pradesh government appears to have been shaken after the Vizag land scam was busted. After the all-party delegation resolved to corner the government by presenting the evidences before the President of India, the state government went into a damage-control mode.

In the backdrop of the scam, AP chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu asked Vizag district collector Praveen Kumar to meet him in the capital city of Amaravati over the issue. The Collector, who reached Amaravati in the morning, was kept waiting until evening. During the meeting, the Chief Minister sought to know as to why the Collector had to take back his statements on the land scam after initially announcing that there was a large-scale tampering of land records in the city.

Maintaining silence during the entire meeting, the Collector reportedly presented the land documents and evidences of the land scam and the details of the TDP leaders involved in the case.

The Collector reportedly submitted a file to the Chief Minister containing clippings from Sakshi daily which has been running a series of articles on the land scams.

He also submitted various evidences of land encroachments committed by several TDP leaders to Chandrababu Naidu. On receipt of the evidences and the file, Chandrababu Naidu instructed the Collector to focus on investigation and that he would "take care of the evidences" against various TDP leaders.

Later, the AP CM told the Collector that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) would be constituted to probe the scam.

A press release came out from the Chief Minister's Office stating that a SIT would be probing the land grab in Kommidi and Madhuravada areas in the district. Without announcing the names of the members in the SIT team, the CMO release simply stated that the SIT would comprise officials from revenue, police and judiciary departments.