Five arrested for illegally occupying NRI’s house in Chandigarh’s Sector 40

NRI’s nephew had visited the house to get it vacated from the tenant, but instead ran into sqautters.

Five people, including three women, were arrested for illegally living in an NRI’s house in Sector 40 on Sunday.

The NRI, who lives in the US, had rented out the house to a man, who had stopped paying rent. (Representative image)

Those arrested were identified as Amardeep Singh, 27, of Ludhiana and Vikas Joshi, 29, of Sector 39, Chandigarh, along with three women — Neeraj Malhotra, 45, of Sector 40, Chandigarh, Kunti, 34, of Sector 56, Chandigarh, and Dilpreet Grewal, 33, of Ludhiana.

The complaint was lodged by Ludhiana resident Amanjot Singh, whose uncle, Harbhajan Singh, owns the Sector-40 house.

Amanjot said his uncle, who along with his family, lived in the US, had rented out the house to one Jayesh Panchal for 11 months in September 2019. Panchal had paid Rs 58,000 as security, but later stopped paying the rent.

Later, Harbhajan executed a general power of attorney (GPA) in Amanjot’s favour to get the house vacated.

When Amanjot and his family visited the house, he found a woman, Neeraj Malhotra, was illegally living in the house. She started quarreling with him and his wife, and in the meantime, another woman came out from the house and joined the argument. Eventually, two more women and a man came forward in support of the women.

Amanjot approached the police with a complaint alleging that the illegal occupants had also stolen valuable articles in the house and threatened him with dire consequences.

A case under Sections 448 (house-trespass), 380 (theft in dwelling house, etc), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at the Sector 39 police station.

All accused were produced in court and sent to judicial custody.