MUMBAI, Sept. 27 -- Those arrested in connection with nearly 865 allegedly forged maps of Madh Island bungalows have revealed a network of government officials involved in the irregularities, the police told the Bombay High Court on Friday. The police's response comes a day after the court expressed its displeasure over how the police and civic officials were treating the investigation. Additional public prosecutor Mankunwar Deshmukh, told the division-bench of justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Sandesh Patil that a real estate agent involved in the forgery was apprehended on Friday and has revealed details about civic officials involved in the controversy. Deshmukh said the case is finally making headway and added that the police have been carefully going through the "voluminous documentary evidence" and have a preliminary idea regarding the roles of the officers involved. Deshmukh was responding to a petition filed by RTI activist Vaibhav Thakur and other locals who own ancestral lands in Erangal, Madh Island, located along the northern coastline of the city. The petitioners had approached the Bombay High Court in June 2024 seeking an investigation into the alleged forgery of maps in the area. As per their allegations, civic and revenue officials had conspired together and let the fraud go unchecked. In his petition, Thakur alleged that in 2016, when he had visited his land with some family members he found that some structures had been constructed on the land. However, a May 2012 report by the village-level revenue officer to the Tehsildar (revenue officer) did not mention any such existing structure on the land. Suspicious, Thakur filed complaints about the issue at the Mayor's office and the Malvani police station. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) then sent the alleged encroachers a show cause notice in 2018 asking them to explain the constructions on the land. They responded that they had been given allegedly "forged maps" which showed existing constructions on the land. However, maps of the same land from the city's survey office in Goregaon showed no evidence of any construction on the land. Following an FIR in 2024, Thakur approached the court claiming that the police had failed to apprehend the real culprits behind the forgery. The high court then transferred the case to a special investigation team in October 2024. Thakur's advocate Abhinandan Vagyani said that although a few real estate agents involved in the case had been caught, no civic officials involved in the racket were arrested so far. The court directed the SIT to pursue the matter "doggedly" until the end....