Land-grabbers under
scanner
N D Sharma
Kamal Nath
The Madhya Pradesh
government’s antiencroachment drive has
razed to the ground scores
of high-rise buildings and
recovered hundreds of
acres of government land across the
State.
It faced initially vehement criticism
and threats from the opposition BJP leaders but they are now watching the
operation quietly. Some of the illegal
properties demolished belonged to
Congress leaders also. This is
apparently the only action of the oneyear-old Congress government of the
State to receive unqualified appreciation from the people.
Jeetendra Soni
It started late last year with the
raids on the properties of Jeetendra
Soni alias Jeetu Soni in Indore and
demolition of his illegal
constructions. With over 55 FIRs
against him, Jeetu is absconding. He
has been described in police
records as a journalist, realtor,
hotelier, prostitution ring operator,
human trafficker, extortionist and
blackmailer. Forgery and violation of Arms Act have also been added
to the list of offences against him.
His hotel-cum-bar named ‘My
Home’ (now demolished) was said to
have entertained politicians belonging
both to the BJP and the Congress as
well as IAS and IPS officers for over
three decades.
During the operation, the police
recovered 67 bar dancers and seven
children from the dance bar owned by
him, the women mostly belonging to
West Bengal and Assam. He was said
to have forcibly occupied properties of
a large number of people. Registry
documents of more than 30 properties
were seized by the police. Several flats
illegally occupied by Jeetu in the Horizon Studio Apartments were
handed over by the police to genuine
owners.
Over 30 years ago, Jeetu had
started his career as a journalist
after acquiring ‘Sanjha
Lokswami’, a Hindi eveninger,
from Congress leader Mahesh Joshi
who had started it. Gradually, he
diversified his operations into the
forbidden areas. He was said to
have played a crucial role in the
call-girl racket, erroneously
referred to as ‘honey-trap racket’ in
which some high-profile women
had trapped top politicians and
bureaucrats, made their video
recordings in compromising
positions and extorted from them
amounts running into crores of
rupees.
The police claimed to have
recovered nearly 4000 such recordings
from Jeetu’s hotels and bars. The
matter pertaining to the call-girl racket
is being investigated by the police
separately.
Another notable operation
demolition was carried out in
Mandsaur where 50-year-old mansion
of legendary narcotics smuggler
Mohammad Shafi was razed. Shafi had
set up a strong network of
opium/heroin smuggling in the Central
India. His three-storey building in
Mandsaur had more than 72 rooms
with 20 staircases besides a 30-feet
garage and a hall above, though the
permission was only
for eight rooms on the ground and
first floors. The mansion was said to be
equipped with exotic items of luxury
imported from various countries.
The building was registered in the
names of Jafar Iqbal and Mohd Irfan,
sons of Shafi’s brother and partner in
smuggling, Mohd Ayub. Shafi was said
to have also forcibly occupied a vast
tract of land belonging to the famous
Pashupatinath temple in Mandsaur.
The first case against
Mohammad Shafi was
registered in the early
seventies for stealing 17
bags of opium from the
government opium factory
at Neemuch (in Mandsaur
district). As of today, there
are 11 cases (including 5
under NDPSA and 4 under
Opium Act) registered in
various police stations
against Shafi, 20 cases
against his brother Ayub and
4 cases against his another
brother Ehsan. Shafi and his
brothers were, though,
treated by
the police with kid gloves
because of his clout.
Mohammad Shafi bungalow was demolished
As the demotion squad reached the
palace under police protection, Shafi’s
daughter-in-law Shamim Bano
hurriedly approached Mandsaur
Police Chief Mankamna Prasad and
handed over the keys to him with the
request not to demolish the bungalow.
She was, however, curtly told that the
structure above the first floor would
be demolished as
the permission was
only for the ground
and first floors.
Mohd Shafi has been
absconding since
1998 when a
consignment of
more than 32 kg of
heroin belonging to
him was confiscated.
The first case
against Mohammad
Shafi was registered
in the early seventies
for stealing 17 bags of opium from the
government opium factory at
Neemuch (in Mandsaur district). As of
today, there are 11 cases (including 5
under NDPSA and 4 under Opium Act)
registered in various police stations
against Shafi, 20 cases against his
brother Ayub and 4 cases against his
another brother Ehsan. Shafi and his
brothers were, though, treated by
the police with kid gloves because of
his clout.
Sunderlal Patwa
Shafi got his clout mainly
because of his friendship with BJP
leader and former Chief Minister of
Madhya Pradesh Sunderlal Patwa
who also belonged to Mandsaur
district. Whenever the matter was
raised in the Assembly, Patwa
always defended his friendship
with Shafi. The police watched and
registered Shafi’s activities but did not
touch him. It was by mistake that in
1991, the Indore police arrested four
persons for possessing 10 kg of heroin and registered a case against them
under a non-bailable section of
Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic
Substances Act (NDPSA).
When it came to be known that one
of the accused, Ehsan, was Mohd
Shafi’s younger brother, the police
changed its stance and failed to
produce the case diary under one
pretext or the other in the court where
a bail application was moved on behalf
of the accused. Ultimately the judge
asked the police to produce the
Roznamcha. When it was produced,
the judge saw that pages 5 to 14 in the
Roznamcha were torn and then fresh
entries relating to the case were made.
The judge had no option but to grant
the bail.
Shafi was said to have apprenticed
under Bombay don Haji Mastan in the
late sixties. He started with opium
smuggling (Mandsaur is a major
opium growing district) for which he
had built a vast network consisting
mostly of women. His own sisters were
said to be quite active in the operation.
Later on, he had taken to heroin
smuggling concentrating mostly at the
Bombay route, while leaving the rest
of India to his female contingent.
A senior police officer in Bhopal
once told me that Shafi always used
a brand new car for carrying heroin
from Mandsaur to Bombay where
he would dispose of the car. For his
next trip he would buy a new car.
In the late 1990s, the Tamil Nadu
police had seized a consignment of 20
kg of heroin at Salem. The
consignment was traced to
Mohammad Shafi’s sister Zubeida and
her daughter Femida Berhamuddin,
safely ensconced in their palaces in
Mandsaur.
It was from here that the two
women were in touch with their
contacts in Dindigul, Chennai,
Bangalore, Kozhikkode and other
towns in south India. The consignment
seized in Salem was supposed to be
delivered to Femida Berhamuddin’s
contact in Chennai from where it
would be taken to Sri Lanka,
presumably for the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
