Patra Chawl scam case witness Swapna Patkar receives life and rape threat, writes letter to ED

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 31 (ANI): Swapna Patkar, a witness in the money-laundering case related to Goregaon’s Patra Chawl, has written a letter to AdditionAL Director (Western Region), Enforcement Directorate (ED) alleging rape and life threats to her “for changing the statements given during the investigation of the case.”

In the letter Patkar wrote, “I would like to bring it to your notice that the accused in the case and his touts/goons are constantly indulging in the witness threatening/tampering with me and may be with others as well. I am continuously being threatened and being pressurised to change my statements given during the investigations, I am also being pressurised for title of some lands and properties in the name of one accused, Sanjay Raut and his family members.”

In past as well, Swapna Patkar has lodged a complaint with the Vakola police in Mumbai that someone threw a bottle into the premises of her residence on Wednesday and a letter was found in that bottle which threatened her against raising her voice in the court.

According to her complaint, at around 1 am on Wednesday night, she heard the sound of a glass bottle breaking in the premises of her house. On inquiring with her security staff, she came to know that a letter in Marathi was inside the bottle.

Notably, Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut is an alleged accused in the case. On June 28, 2022, Raut was summoned by the ED in connection to the prevention of the money laundering case pertaining to the Rs 1034 crore Patra Chawl land scam.

Patra Chawl, in the Siddarth Nagar area of Goregaon, a western suburb of Mumbai, went for redevelopment in 2008. It had 672 tenants, and the housing units were spread across 47 acres.

Patra Chawl was originally a barrack constructed by the British during the Second World War and was used as a military camp. In 2008, MHADA took up the redevelopment project and appointed Guru Ashish Construction Private Limited (GACPL), a sister concern of the real estate company Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL), to rehabilitate over 670 tenants and redevelop the locality.

A tripartite agreement was signed between society, Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) and Guru Ashish Construction Pvt Ltd.

According to the agreement, the developer was to provide the flats to 672 tenants and develop flats for MHADA and thereafter remaining area to be sold by the developer. The directors of Guru Ashish Constructions misled MHADA and sold the FSI to 9 developers and collected a net amount of approx. Rs 901.79 crore without constructing the rehab portion for 672 displaced tenants and the MHADA portion.