To grab land in UP, 'God declared dead'

Ina bizarre case of land grab in Uttar Pradesh, the deity of a temple was'declared dead' in the mutation documents of the land deed title of a temple inLucknow.

Thetemple is said to be 100 years old, its land is spread over 7,000 sq metre andrun by a trust registered in the name of Lord Krishna-Ram. It is in KushmauraHaluvapur village in the Mohanlalganj area.

Atsome point in time, a man Gaya Prasad was added to the land record documents asthe father of Lord Krishna-Ram.

Whenconsolidation of land records took place in 1987, Lord Krishna-Ram was declared'dead'. Subsequently, the trust was transferred to Gaya Prasad as his property.

In1991, Gaya Prasad was declared dead. The trust passed on to his brothersidentified as Ramnath and Haridwar.

Twenty-fiveyears later, the matter came to light when the temple's original trustee named,Sushil Kumar Tripathi filed a complaint with Naib-Tehsildar in 2016.

Thecase travelled from the Naib-Tehsildar's office to the district magistrate, andto the deputy chief minister's office but without any results.Ithas now emerged that multiple mutations of the land have taken place in afraudulent manner.

DeputyChief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who recently ordered a probe into the matter bySDM Prafulla Tripathi, said that the investigation revealed that somebody hadforged the documents in the name of the man, who originally registered thetrust.

Theforgery was done to grab temple land of around 7,300 square metres.

Accordingto SDM Sadar Prafulla Kumar Tripathi, the investigation established that both,the temple and land, were registered in the name of Lord Krishna-Rama in thepast.

Tripathisaid the temple's land was being described as barren land of the local gramsabha. The contention has been challenged at the SDM court and the case isunder trial.