147 land grab cases received by special cell

CHENNAI: The special team investigating land grab cases in suburban Chennai said on Monday that it has received a total of 147 complaints and property worth Rs 21.44 crore had been returned to the owners.  Ravindran, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Central Crime Branch, said in a press meet that the land grab complaint against actor Vadivelu was investigated and that the actor had returned the land to its owner.Palaniappan of Anna Nagar had lodged a complaint alleging that the actor grabbed his 30-cent land located at Irumbuliyur by forging documents. Police said the special team, after investigation, worked out a compromise on the issue, after which the actor returned the land to the complainant.Besides that, investigation on 38 petitions had been completed and 40 persons arrested in 12 land grab cases registered after scrutinising land documents.  About 13.79 acres of land valued at `21.44 crore were returned to their rightful owners.With the arrest of 39 persons, the suburban police also claimed to have cracked 44 cases of chain snatching and other robbery cases in St Thomas Mount, Ambattur and Madhavaram districts.  Police have recovered over 110 sovereigns of gold jewellery and vehicles totally worth `70 lakh.St Thomas Mount Deputy Commissioner Baskaran, Deputy Commissioner (Headquarters) Prabakaran and Deputy Commissioner (Traffic) Karthikeyan returned the jewellery to their owners.Effective raids conducted over the past three months had resulted in the arrest of three persons under the Bootleggers Act and 8,800 litres of spirit and 2,116 bottles of liquor from other states had been seized. The Central Crime Branch had also taken stringent measures to curb video piracy and arrested 30 persons in 31 cases.  Pirated CDs, DVDs and computer accessories worth a total of `30 lakh had been seized.  In the past two months, 38 lorries were detained in Chennai suburban police limits for illegal transportation of sand and were later handed over to the Revenue District Officer.  A fine amount of `9.79 lakh had also been collected.