IIT professor faces 'house-grab sharks'

PATNA: Shock and dismay would be your first reaction if you suddenly find out that your property now no more stands in your name. Such a fate met Sujoy Kumar Guha, professor at School of Medical Science and Technology, IIT-Kharagpur. This former professor of IIT, Delhi and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, is running from pillar to post in the city to save his ancestral property from being usurped by Patna's 'house-grabbing mafia'.
"It seems to be a field day for the house-grabbers and land mafia in the city," said a shocked Guha, who found out last Friday that his house in the posh New Dak Bungalow Road had been reportedly grabbed by a cloth merchant.
According to reports, Guha's house was sold on the basis of a concocted power of attorney, given by his late mother Monica Guha to a cloth merchant on March 11 this year. Strangely enough, his mother had died in January 1993. Guha, who lodged an FIR with Gandhi Maidan police station on May 17, was even puzzled to find out that the lady who was posing as his mother Monica Guha, shares the year of birth (1940) with Guha himself.
Prof Guha reached here after his staff informed him that two youths, claiming that the property had been sold, asked everyone residing there to vacate the house.
Since then there has been no rest for this septuagenarian. Guha met chief secretary Anup Mukherjee, DIG central range, Vineet Vinayak and Patna DM, Sanjay Kumar Singh. In response, the circle officer was ordered to stay the mutation in favour of the buyer, till details were verified.
"What puzzled me most was that, on May 21, I was informed that the buyer had now applied for mutation, for which I never received any notice seeking a no-objection from my side," Guha told TOI, who is currently doing research in injectable contraceptive for male, trans-cervical female contraception and artificial heart development.
On inquiry, he surprisingly found from the circle officer's record that no objection notice was issued to him more than a month back and the period stipulated for raising any objection had lapsed.
"Since it's a matter of probe, I have asked the city SP to look into the issue," DIG Vineet Vinayak told TOI.