`Transferred Haryana officer gets death threats`

Senior Haryana IAS officer Ashok Khemka had on Monday cancelled the mutation of a controversial land deal between Robert Vadra`s company and DLF in Gurgaon.

Chandigarh: Senior Haryana IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who on Monday cancelled the mutation of a controversial land deal between Robert Vadra`s company and DLF in Gurgaon, is getting death threats from anonymous people, a close friend claimed on Tuesday.

"He told me that he has received some phone calls in which people asked him to stop his activities or he would be eliminated," Khemka`s friend and senior lawyer Anupam Gupta told a news agency here. "Those threatening him also say that they have given a supari (underworld contract) to eliminate him," Gupta said. Khemka was transferred out as director general of Land Consolidation and Land Records-cum-inspector general of Registration on October 11, days after ordering a probe into the land deal. He cancelled the mutation of the land sale by M/s Sky Light Hospitality, a company owned by Vadra, son-in-law of Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday (October 15), his last day in that office. Vadra`s company, which bought the controversial land on the Manesar-Gurgaon road in February 2008 and got a housing colony licence for it from the Haryana government just a month later (in March), later entered into a sale deed with realty giant DLF to sell it for an amount of Rs 58 crore. Vadra`s company got the Rs 58 crore from DLF in instalments between June 2008 and July 2012. Khemka has been transferred nearly 40 times in his 21 year career. IANS