Delhi woman, 70, among 3 held for selling dead couple’s flat

The case came to the fore after a person filed a police complaint in October this year at Dwarka South police station, alleging that some unknown property grabbers had occupied the property of his brother-in-law — a flat on the first floor of an apartment in Sector 6 — after forging property documents

An empty apartment of an elderly couple who died in 2023 was sold off to an individual for ₹1.85 crore earlier this year. However, a police probe into a complaint filed few months later by the relative of the deceased revealed that the sale of the apartment in Dwarka Sector 6 was made on the basis of forged documents. Three people, including a 70-year-old woman, were arrested earlier this month for allegedly grabbing the property, police said on Thursday.

A a case of cheating, forgery, theft, criminal conspiracy and common intention was registered at the Dwarka South police station. (FILE)

“The flat, which is in a high-rise residential society in Dwarka Sector-6, was owned by a man, an 80-year-old retired government employee, who died last year. His wife had died in 2019. Since the couple did not have children, the flat was lying vacant. The alleged land grabbers took advantage of it and occupied the property after preparing its forged ownership documents. They used the same fake documents to sell the property to a buyer named Sunny Yadav, a property dealer, for ₹1.85 crore,” said deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka) Ankit Singh.

The case came to the fore after a person filed a police complaint in October this year at Dwarka South police station, alleging that some unknown property grabbers had occupied the property of his brother-in-law — a flat on the first floor of an apartment in Sector 6 — after forging property documents, the officer said.

Sarabjeet was arrested in October.

His interrogation, police said, revealed that his associate Pawandeep Singh alias Prince, a 43-year-old resident of Rajouri Garden and a property dealer by profession, was the mastermind in the case. Pawandeep forged the documents of the flat to show Sarabjeet’s 70-year-old mother Rajender Kaur as its legal owner. Thereafter, they sold the property. As Pawandeep had got information about Sarabjeet’s arrest, he fled to Himachal Pradesh, from where he was arrested later in October, police said.

Police said that Pawandeep was last arrested in a murder case in 2008. “While in jail, he met some inmates who gave him the idea of forging documents of empty plots and flats and selling them to earn easy money. He got information about the deaths of the flat owner and his wife. Pawandeep conspired with the mother-son duo, and they sold the property using fake documents,” said an investigator, who asked not to be named.

DCP Singh said that Kaur also went underground after the registration of the case and the arrest of her son. She was declared a proclaimed offender by a city court. On December 9, Kaur was finally arrested from Sant Nagar Extension in Delhi.

“Kaur’s interrogation revealed that Pawandeep lured her by promising to give her a huge amount of money if she agreed to forging the documents of the flat in her name,” added Singh.