SRINAGAR: A CBI team on Sunday raided the residence of businessman Showkat Choudhary in Srinagar’s Zakura area as part of the investigation into the Roshini land scam, days after the agency registered a case against six officials, including three former IAS officers, for giving him ownership rights on a piece of “government land” located at Raj Bagh under the Roshini Act. Choudhary is the owner of Hatric Group of Restaurants.
The land in question was “gifted” by then deputy chief minister of J&K Mirza Afzal Beigh, during Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah rule as CM in 1977, to his sons Mehboob Beigh and Mumtaaz Afzal Beigh. Such gifting of government land to their wards by those in positions of power was witnessed in the erstwhile state from late Shiekh Abdullah period in 1977 till the Congress-PDP rule in 2008.
Mehboob Beigh, who holds an MBBS degree, preferred to join politics and went on to become a minister in the GM Shah government in 1984. Currently, he is affiliated to PDP.
The six officials against whom the CBI has filed the case are former IAS officers Mehboob Iqbal, Sheikh Ejaz Iqbal and Muhammed Afzal Bhat, besides Mushtaq Ahmad Malik, Mohammed Akram Khan and Sheikh Muneer Akhtar. These six accused were part of a committee that had given ownership rights on the land in question to Choudhary under the Roshini Act.
According to preliminary investigation carried out by CBI, the piece of land was leased out to the Beigh brothers in 1977 by their father Mirza as…
CBI raids bizman’s house in Srinagar as part of Roshni scam probe | India News
