Man involved in land fraud arrested

Dehradun police has arrested a person, Devendra Negi, a land mafia and a manager of lakshya Public School, Naya Goan, Ganeshpur, on Friday. He had duped several people of lakhs of rupees in land fraud case, said Garhwal Range IG/DIG Sanjay Kumar Gunjyal while interacting with media persons on Friday.

Ganjyal said that ITBP, Haldwani inspector, Surendra Khatri, had registered a complaint for the Special Investigation Team (SIT), Garhwal Range, stating that things had started after he had met Devendra Singh Negi, resident of Ganeshpur, to purchase a plot of land in the same area.

Following the direction of Negi, Khatri had signed an agreement over the piece of land with the owner for `10 lakh and he paid `5 lakh in two phases to Negi.

It was agreed that after the first installment of `5 lakh was paid, the rest would be paid after the land got registered.

Khatri alleged that Negi had refused to have the land registered when time came for it as per the agreement. After about a year, when Khatri inquired about the status of the land it was revealed that the deal was a fraudulent one.

When Khatri charged Negi with having gone for a fake agreement, Negi gave him a cheque of `5 lakh. The cheque had bounced in the bank, the complainant said.

After Khatri had approached SIT with his complaint SIT officers conducted investigation of the complaint and found that it held ground.  

Investigation revealed that Negi was adept in duping people in the name of land purchases. Several have fallen prey to his machinations, the probe team said.

Negi showed lands owned by unknown persons and false agreements were signed with forged documents. When charged with forgery, he used to produce cheques that bounced.

later, when things come to the court he gets bails easily under NI Act. He had planned to repeat the same in this case too, police probing the case said.

IG Gunjyal directed Dehradun SSP to lodge an FIR in Patelnagar police station. A team led by inspector Pankaj Gairola was formed at Patelnagar.

Other members, namely, SI PD Bhatt with constables — Rakesh Bhatt, Sahis Malik and Sri Kant Malik — were also included in the team.

The police conducted investigation and based on evidences, Negi was arrested on Friday.

He was sent to jail after being produced in the court. Gunjyal directed the police officers to open the accused’s history-sheet, given his past background.  He announced reward of `5,000 to the team for solving the case.