Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

Land-selling racket unearthed

Staff Reporter

Gang was caught while processing papers relating to a piece of land at Nidamanuru

VIJAYAWADA: The Machavaram police on Tuesday busted a six-member gang involved in sale of housing plots by forging documents.

The gang, which successfully completed the transactions of a plot at Kanuru and another in Rajahmundry, was caught when it was processing the papers relating to a piece of land at Nidamanuru here.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (Central Zone) N. Ramachandra Murthy said at a press conference that the modus operandi of the gang was to identify vacant plots, the owners of which were residing at far-away places, and collect copies of the registered documents of the plot from land registration office. The plot would then be resold to a new person for a cheaper price. For this, the gang members would use forged documents, besides impersonating the owner of the plot.

The main accused, Bandi Girish Sankar, 24, of Poranki, worked as an agent with Jana Chaitanya Housing Private Limited for a few years.

He was accused of collecting the addresses of individuals who purchased plots in the city from the agency but residing outside.

Mr. Murthy accused Sankar of forging the documents of select plots with the help of his associates Yeneni Ratna Sekhar, 30, of the city, Gudipudi Haribabu, 43, of Gudlavalleru, Dasari Subrahmanyam, 30, Meruva Jaganmohan Rao, 53, and Janyavula Ravi Kumar, 30, all of Machilipatnam, and selling them to private persons at a price much less than the market value.

The issue came to light when Kandi Anji Reddy of Pandelapalli village in Vetapalem mandal of Prakasam district, who owned a piece of land in Kanuru, tried to resell his plot in April this year.

After securing an encumbrance certificate from the registrar's office, Mr. Reddy came to know that the plot was already sold to one Naragani Pardhasarathi of Ramalingeswara Nagar in the city. Subsequently, Mr. Reddy lodged a complaint with the Machavaram police.

The police secured clues from the stamp papers used for the registration and traced the addresses of the accused.

A duplicate voter identity card of Mr. Reddy was created and produced at the registrar's office during the fake registration, Mr. Murthy said.

During the investigation, the police found that the same gang had resold a piece of land at Rajahmundry for a throwaway price.

Cases were registered under Sections 419 (impersonation), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) and 471(claiming a forged document as genuine) of the IPC.

The police were on the lookout for the couple of accused who reportedly helped the gang.

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