Shivpur police on Saturday, 19 September 2026, registered an FIR naming a Varanasi Development Authority junior engineer and six others after a Special Judge (SC/ST) court directed that the case be taken on record. The complaint, from Sujit Kumar Sonkar of Bhagatpur under Shivpur, alleges extortion linked to building-map approval, house trespass, assault, vandalism and caste-based abuse. All of those claims remain allegations until investigation and trial test them.
Named in the FIR are VDA junior engineer Jaiprakash Gupta; VDA-linked employees Sushil Upadhyay, Aniruddh Pandey and Suraj Yadav; and three unidentified persons. Sonkar says construction was underway on a plot registered in his mother Lalmani Devi’s name. After the VDA pasted a notice on the property on 8 December 2025, he approached the authority office for map approval. He alleges that Gupta directed him to Upadhyay, who demanded ₹3 lakh to ₹3.5 lakh to get the map through, and that ₹30,000 was taken as an advance.
Sonkar further states he was later told to deposit ₹8,13,433 as the official fee, of which he paid ₹50,000 on 12 February and sought time for the balance. When he objected to further demands, he alleges, he was pressed for another ₹5 lakh and threatened with sealing of the house. On the evening of 17 March 2026, he alleges, the accused entered his house forcibly, assaulted him, used caste slurs, snatched ₹8,000 from his pocket, damaged household items and threatened to trap him in a false case.
The complainant says police did not act on his earlier approach, after which he moved the Special Judge (SC/ST) court, which ordered registration of the FIR. Shivpur station has now taken the court direction on file.
Map-approval corridors in the development authority often sit at the edge of civic frustration; that ambient fact is not evidence. What is on the stamp today is a court-ordered FIR at Shivpur naming a junior engineer and others on an alleged extortion-and-assault narrative that stretches from a December 2025 notice to a March 2026 house visit. Money figures in the complaint — ₹3–3.5 lakh demand, ₹30,000 advance, ₹8,13,433 fee, ₹50,000 deposit, ₹5 lakh further demand, ₹8,000 snatched — are recited as alleged, not as audited proof.
For Bhagatpur residents watching the file, the next steps sit with Shivpur investigators: statements, call detail if sought, and whatever VDA internal paper the probe requests. For the named accused, the FIR is the start of a criminal process, not its end.
Shivpur registered a court-ordered FIR naming VDA junior engineer Jaiprakash Gupta and six others on Sujit Kumar Sonkar’s complaint of map-linked extortion and a March assault. Guilt or innocence is for the investigation and the court, not for a news lead.
