RAJKOT: On the day chief minister Bhupendra Patel was consoling the relatives of 27 people roasted alive in the TRP Game Zone file, some Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) officers were working overtime to save their skin by creating fake backdated letters and destroying the old registers, sensing that they would face legal action.
On Saturday night, the city crime branch arrested two more officers – the assistant town planning officer Rajesh Makwana and assistant engineer Jaydeep Chaudhary – of RMC, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 12.The total number of RMC officers arrested in the case has now gone up to six.
Officials said that Chaudhary and Makwana were creating the fake file of regularization application from TRP game zone operators and made the outward register disappear.
According to the prosecution, the interrogation of assistant town planner (TPO) Gautam Joshi and the department clerk Mahesh Chavda revealed that their senior Mansukh Sagathiya had hatched a conspiracy to tamper with the civic records. He was instrumental in creating the backdated fake documents in the west zone office to show that the game zone operators had applied for regularization on on May 4. He also prepared a fictitious letter of query dated May 9 to show the process of application was under consideration and that he had queries regarding the same. Sagathiya connived with other accused to destroy the old outward register and created a new one in which the entry of the query letter sequenced number 142 was made.
It must be noted that Chavda is not named in the FIR as an accused. In a related development, the police on Saturday invoked charges of criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence, forgery, and creating fake documents against the 10 accused following the nod of the sessions court.
The accused have been already booked under IPC sections 304 (causing death due to negligence) and others. The police had requested the court to permit adding the other relevant sections in the FIR.
The police suspect that the Jadeja brothers – Ashok and Kirit – who are the owners of the land on which the game zone was built are also involved in this conspiracy.
Of the 12 accused, nine are in judicial custody while Ashok has been remanded to police custody after he surrendered on Friday. Police will produce Makwana and Chaudhary in the court to seek their remand.
On Saturday night, the city crime branch arrested two more officers – the assistant town planning officer Rajesh Makwana and assistant engineer Jaydeep Chaudhary – of RMC, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 12.The total number of RMC officers arrested in the case has now gone up to six.
Officials said that Chaudhary and Makwana were creating the fake file of regularization application from TRP game zone operators and made the outward register disappear.
According to the prosecution, the interrogation of assistant town planner (TPO) Gautam Joshi and the department clerk Mahesh Chavda revealed that their senior Mansukh Sagathiya had hatched a conspiracy to tamper with the civic records. He was instrumental in creating the backdated fake documents in the west zone office to show that the game zone operators had applied for regularization on on May 4. He also prepared a fictitious letter of query dated May 9 to show the process of application was under consideration and that he had queries regarding the same. Sagathiya connived with other accused to destroy the old outward register and created a new one in which the entry of the query letter sequenced number 142 was made.
It must be noted that Chavda is not named in the FIR as an accused. In a related development, the police on Saturday invoked charges of criminal conspiracy, destruction of evidence, forgery, and creating fake documents against the 10 accused following the nod of the sessions court.
The accused have been already booked under IPC sections 304 (causing death due to negligence) and others. The police had requested the court to permit adding the other relevant sections in the FIR.
The police suspect that the Jadeja brothers – Ashok and Kirit – who are the owners of the land on which the game zone was built are also involved in this conspiracy.
Of the 12 accused, nine are in judicial custody while Ashok has been remanded to police custody after he surrendered on Friday. Police will produce Makwana and Chaudhary in the court to seek their remand.