Hyderabad police has busted yet another scam of land grabbing worth hundreds of crore with the arrest of an Andhra Pradesh legislator JC Deepak Reddy and his associate and a lawyer Shailendra Saxena. The duo facing charges of forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy were produced in a Hyderabad Court on Wednesday. They were remanded to 14 days judicial custody and sent to Chanchalguda Central Jail.
Deepak Reddy is the Telugu Desam member of AP legislative Council and son-in-law of TDP MP from Anantapur JC Diwakar Reddy.
Curiously, in his affidavit filed before the election authorities in 2012, Deepak Reddy claimed owning properties worth Rs 6,455 crore. All the disputed lands were in the list of his assets. It made him the richest politician in both the Telugu States.
The modus operandi of the duo was to create litigations over the ownership of prime lands in the city by forging documents in fictitious name and staking the ownership claims.
ACP, Central Crime Station, Hyderabad G Jogaiah said that a case was filed against the duo based on a complaint from a member of Musa Cooperative Housing Society that the two were trying to usurp 7 acres of land of the society in Mehdipatnam area. A similar case was also filed against them in connection with attempt to grab two acres of land in Banjara Hills.
In the case of Mehdipatnam land, they had created a fictitious identity in the name of Iqbal Khasim Kahn and prepared documents showing him the owner of the land and a petition was filed in the High Court on his behalf. In turn another document was forged to show Deepak Reddy as the buyer of the land from Khan. The conspiracy was unravelled when Srinivas, another associate of Deepak Reddy fellout with him and spilled the beans. This opened a pandora’s box and many other societies also lodged complaints.
In the second case, attempt was made to grasp 3.37 acres of land in Banjara Hills. The land was purchased from its owner Ayub Kamal by MVS Choudhary and brothers in 1960. As the land was lying vacant Shailesh Saxena filed a claim in 2008 that the land belonged to Akbar Mohiuddin and Khawja Moinuddin Ansari. He also prepared another set of documents claiming that Deepak Reddy had purchased the land from Ansari brothers but Choudhary and brothers grabbed it. However, Choudhary brothers established their ownership with genuine documents in the court after which a criminal case was registered against them three months ago.