The Rajkot police have arrested two persons, with good political connections, on charge of illegally developing a housing society on a piece of government land and selling it. The arrests came a fortnight after the police launched an aggressive anti-landgrab drive.

While one of the accused, Pravin Parmar, is the nephew of state Finance Minister Vajubhai Vala, Manu Dangar, the other person, is the brother of former city mayor Ashok Dangar. Both have been booked under Section 467 of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to forgery of documents.

The two are accused of encroaching over 4,900 square metre of land at Kotharia survey number 147, developing a society named Hari Om and selling it. The Rajkot District Collectorate, to which the land belongs, had demolished most of the houses on the disputed land during a drive in 2005, when the matter came to its notice.

The collectorate had registered cases against six people, whose interrogation revealed the involvement of Parmar and Dangar. At present, 10 houses still exist on the land in question.

The police said the people arrested earlier told them that they operated only on the instructions of Parmar and Dangar. Using a fake power of attorney, people were convinced that the land on which the society was constructed belonged to them.

Their arrest was delayed for want of the original copy of the power of attorney the accused had forged in their favour by the owner of the land, one Priyvandana Parekh.

According to the government revenue records, the said land was taken over by the state government in 1987 under the Urban Land Ceiling Act.

Using a fake power of attorney on behalf of Parekh, the accused, however, developed a society on it.

Incidentally, it was on the basis of the power of attorney copy submitted by the accused at the Deputy Collector Stamp Duty Rajkot-II that the collectorate registered an FIR against them. The copy was, however, later misplaced and is yet to be found. The investigating team of Rajkot city police asked for the same record on at least 20 occasions, but in vain.