Land mafia kingpin held for encroaching on 2.10 acres in Vasai

Surendra Pratap Singh aka Randha was arrested on Monday night by a team attached to unit 4 of the MBVV crime branch based on technical intelligence and investigation, police said

MUMBAI: Alleged land mafia kingpin Surendra Pratap Singh aka Randha has been arrested by the Mira Bhayander Vasai Virar (MBVV) police crime branch on charges of encroaching upon 2.10 acres of private land in Vasai and defrauding unsuspecting home buyers by selling them flats in illegally constructed buildings on the plot.

Land mafia kingpin held for encroaching on 2.10 acres in Vasai

Singh was arrested on Monday night by a team attached to unit 4 of the MBVV crime branch based on technical intelligence and investigation. He was produced before the Vasai court on Tuesday and remanded in police custody till April 10, an officer from unit 4 told Hindustan Times, requesting anonymity.

Instances of land grab followed by construction and sale of unauthorized tenements are rampant in the Vasai-Virar region and Singh’s arrest has caused a stir among alleged land mafias, police said.

A first information report (FIR) was registered against Singh at the Waliv police station on April 2, based on a complaint from the land owner’s representative and power of attorney holder, Devendra Khemraj Jain.

Jain alleged that sometime between 2020 and 2025, Singh illegally took possession of 210 gunthas in the Rajavali area of Vasai East, spread across survey no. 146, hissa no. 3, and survey no. 149, hissa no. 2, without paying any compensation at the rate of ₹6.71 lakh per guntha. Subsequently, unauthorised chawls were constructed on the land in collusion with builders and tenements were sold to ordinary citizens, resulting in large-scale financial fraud of approximately ₹14 crore, Jain alleged.

Singh has been booked sections 318(4) (cheating and thereby dishonestly inducing the person deceived to deliver any property to any person), 351(2) (criminal intimidation), 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 353(3) (spreading false information with intent of creating feelings of enmity, hatred or ill will between different religious, racial, language or regional groups or castes or communities), and 3(5) (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

The police are currently investigating if Singh had other accomplices and how many people had been defrauded by them.