Pune:
In an unnerving parallel to the Adarsh Society Scam in Mumbai another land scam surfaced from Pune involving high ranking Army officers, police personnel and civil servants.
While reports claimed that the high profile crowd grabbed houses in the Pune housing society coming up in the name of Kargil war heroes, promoters of the residential scheme now claim they have never used the Kargil reference.
"We are civil defence officials... we have nothing to do with Kargil... the servicemen are all from Pune... we have nothing to do with Kargil," said DB Gawade, the Secretary of Defence Personnel Cooperative Housing Society.
However, a letter accessed by NDTV gives a different picture.
Written in the year 2000, the letter was submitted to government and asked for land to be given on discounted rate. The letter reads, "There are 40 seniors of the Indian Armed Forces and 150 other Army men who have requested for government land as per government rate. We all have given everything in the Kargil War."
But the repeated use of Kargil, to illegally generate profit, has enraged the real heroes who staked their lives to win a very difficult victory in the year 1999.
"Our blood boils when we come to know that these IAS, IPS, bureaucrats are cornering lands meant for Kargil war widows and even those who have lost their lives," said Colonel RM Bedi, a Kargil war hero.
But despite the criticism, the current housing committee has conveniently tried to pass the buck saying it's not aware how the land was acquired and the secretary of that time, AB Bhosale, has disappeared.
However, the government now has said that all flat allotments in the housing society stand cancelled.