Rs 5 crore land scam busted near Hyderabad 8 held

Hyderabad: Eight criminals involved in a Rs 5 crore land scam were arrested by the Rachakonda Special Operations Team (SOT) Bhongir, in collaboration with the Keesara police.

The accused, as per the police, were jointly marking empty open plots without fencing or boundary in Rampally village of Keesara mandal and forging documents to pose as owners. They tried selling the lands to innocent buyers.

According to reliable sources, the police arrested the main accused, Beegudem Aravind, Sampangi Suresh, and Eega Hari Prasad from their houses in Rampally on August 26.

Later, five other accused, Somnath, Nagendra Prasad, Mir Mohammed Hussain, Yamjala Shekar, and Vanaja, were also arrested on their confession. A few others, such as Amarender, Ahmed, Manik, and Musku Sunil Kumar, are evading arrest.

Seized property and modus operandi

Police recovered laptops, printers, hard disks, scanners, bogus stamp papers, polymer liquid, forged documents, a four-wheeler, and a number of mobile phones from the accused. Forged sale deeds, false death certificates, identity proofs, and family certificates were also recovered.

The police stated that the gang identified the plots whose owners were old, infrequently visited, or had not put up proper fences or boundaries. They acquired certified copies of the deeds and, where no further transactions were made, fabricated sale deeds, death certificates, and identity proofs.

The accused subsequently masqueraded as legal heirs or original proprietors, created fake sale deeds, and put the plots up for sale. Investigations found that at least five plots in Ghatkesar and Rampally were caught in this way.

Previous criminal record

A few members of the gang have an old crime record. Kotla Nagendra Prasad, for example, has appeared in over four criminal cases since 2009, while Somnath and Hari Prasad have also been booked for various forgery and cheating cases earlier.

Rachakonda police appealed to citizens to exercise precaution and check the authenticity of non-judicial stamp papers and property documents by approaching sub-registrar offices, specified banks, or authorised dealers. They cautioned that stringent action would be initiated against those involved in generating or aiding bogus property documents.