Police arrested five more persons in Ongole and Kondepi in Prakasam district in connection with the fake land documents racket case on Thursday.
Based on complaints received from the victims, 15 cases have been registered so far and a special investigation team (SIT) was constituted to unearth the racket.
With the recent arrest, 12 accused, including the suspected kingpin of the racket Ch. Purnachandra Rao (48), have been arrested. Police seized the round seals of the District Registrar Office from four of the arrested persons—Raavi Srinivasa Rao (53), V. Srinivasulu (51), B. Vanamala (53) and K. Sudhakar Reddy.
The fifth person, P. Jayaraju (43), was arrested on a complaint from a lawyer, Aiyinabathina Subba Rao. The lawyer accused Jayaraju of obtaining a fake possession certificate from a Mandal Revenue Officer for the house rented to him.
Taking serious note of the racket, District Collector A.S. Dinesh Kumar has constituted a team of officials, including a Deputy Tehsildar and Sub-registrar, to assist the police in achieving a breakthrough in the cases.
The cases were found to be tough to crack as the erring realtors had a large network of people who had prepared fake seals of MRO offices, panchayat office, registrar offices, stamp vendor license seals, birth and death certificates, and held in their possession a huge quantity of empty stamp papers, said Superintendent of Police Malika Garg.
Modus operandi
Elaborating on the modus operandi of the accused,the SP said that they identify vacant plots owned by aged people or those who don’t live in town. They collect certified copies of the vacant lands and prepare fake sale deeds. Then, they search for a person who is of the same age as the original landowner and create fake identity cards. With the fake documents, the land grabbers cause land disputes, and in the guise of resolving the conflicts, they force the original land owner to part with their land at a dirt cheap price.
Additional Superintendent of Police S.V. Sridhar Rao, heading the SIT, said that cases were registered under IPC sections 420, 467, 471, 506 read with 34 IPC and the probe to nab all those involved in the racket has speeded up.
During the investigation, the police seized 130 sets of registered property documents. ‘‘We are verifying whether they are genuine or fake by visiting each of the parties to land sale,” she said.
