Rice smugglers in Tamil Nadu fix GPS devices in tahsildar’s car to evade check, held
KRISHNAGIRI: Two suspected rice smugglers and the car driver of a flying squad tahsildar of the civil supplies and consumer protection department in Krishnagiri were booked by police on the charge of fixing GPS devices in the revenue official’s car to allegedly track his movement and evade surprise checks.
While N Devaraj (33) of Nadusalai near Gurubarapalli, who is out on bail in a rice smuggling case, has been arrested in the case by the Krishnagiri police on Thursday under various sections, an inquiry is on with car driver K Subramani (59) of Mekalachinnampalli. Ponnappan, who is also suspected to be involved in the case, is on the run.
According to police sources, M Elango (54), who has been working as tahsildar (flying squad) of the civil supplies department since June 2022, used to inspect ration shops and conduct vehicle checks to prevent the smuggling of PDS rice to Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka through Krishnagiri district. He had seized about 200 tonnes of smuggled ration rice in the last one year.
His official car is normally parked at the Krishnagiri collectorate whenever it’s not in use. Around February this year, his vehicle developed some glitch and he took it for repair to a mechanical shop in Krishnagiri town when he found a small GPS tracker fixed near the car’s fuel tank. The rules permit the use of Aadhaar for offering better service and enhancing the overall quality of life of individuals.
“The Aadhaar seeding exercise will exclusively cover land parcels owned by individuals. Land holdings registered under company names cannot be linked to Aadhaar. We are currently exploring the possibility of introducing a unique identification number for such properties. Also, government lands will not be covered under the initiative” Madhusudhan said.
Since 2019, the Aadhaar numbers of both buyers and sellers have been documented during land registration in the state. The practice has been met with minimal opposition from landowners, with only a few expressing reluctance.
An official from the state registration department said, “Currently, we collect Aadhaar from both the seller and the buyer, but we don’t carry out authentication. Given the rising number of complaints regarding land grabbing, implementing such a measure would help reduce land-related crimes.” At present, the state has patta documents for various categories such as agriculture, town and village surveys, and grama natham lands.
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