14 BOOKED FOR SIPHONING OFF GUJARAT RIOT RELIEF FUND

Following a Gujarat High Court order last month, a police complaint has been filed by Panchmahals district’s deputy district development officer Bhupensinh Bhabhor against a taluka development officer (TDO) and 13 others, including the local sarpanch who is also an accused in a 2002 rioting case, for siphoning off riot relief funds by recording false claims. Eight years after her house in Naroda village of Khanpur taluka was destroyed in the 2002 riots, Farida Sayeed and her three sons were paid Rs 1.5 lakh in compensation for the goods and property that they claimed was worth Rs 10 lakh. Farida smelt a scam, given the fact that her neighbour, Usman Gafur Shaikh, got Rs 17.4 lakh from the riot relief fund in 2009. Farida’s son, Mayur Ahmed Sayeed, then approached an observer of All India Anti Corruption and Human Right Watch (AIACHRW), Junagadh-based Dr J B Panesaria, who later filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against 23 officials, including former Khanpur TDO, retired TDO Gunvantlal Bhavsar, former TDO Chandu Ninama, who is presently deputy DDO, Vadodara district panchayat, and Anil Modi, who was sarpanch of Pandarwada village between February 2002 and July 2003. Modi is also an accused in the Pandarwada massacre in which 50 persons were killed by a mob in 2002. “We were being asked to cough up Rs 10,000 for listing our loss in the riot compensation claim. We did not pay,” said Mayur’s younger brother, Wasim Sayeed.