Cops take cognizance of tweets, book 3 after six months

The complainant, Abubacker Siddique Sarbuddin, 52, a senior technician with BEST, has been staying in a shop along with his wife and son for more than three years.

Navi Mumbai: After a Nerul resident took to Twitter alleging that police were not registering his complaint for more than six months against his brother, who allegedly forged a gift deed and usurped their father’s flat in Seawoods, Navi Mumbai, the NRI Coastal Road Police Station on Thursday booked three people in the matter.

Navi Mumbai, India - May 2, 2023:BEST technician and his family have been staying inside a shop for over four years ( L to R Abubaker sidiq sarbudin , Hasina Bhee, Mohammed Farhaan ) at Nerul in Navi Mumbai, India, on Tuesday, May 2, 2023. (Photo by Bachchan Kumar/ HT PHOTO) (HT PHOTO)

The complainant, Abubacker Siddique Sarbuddin, 52, a senior technician with BEST, has been staying in a shop along with his wife and son for more than three years.

The accused has been identified as Kamal Batcha, Sarbuddin’s brother-in-law, Umar Ali, Sarbuddin’s brother and Asman Pari, Ali’s wife.

As per Abubacker, he had become homeless not once but twice. “First, I lost a house at Karawe village where I invested all my PF money after CIDCO’s notice declaring the building as illegal and then demolishing it in 2020. The builder, Batcha, provided us with a shop unit to stay in temporarily till he finds a solution, but it has been three years now and we continue to stay here. Even today, my EMI gets deducted from my salary for the flat that does not exist anymore. After a few months when I realised that the builder won’t provide a solution soon, I thought of staying in the flat that belonged to my father Sarbuddin Bawa, who had passed away in 2014,” he said.

In 2010, Bawa purchased a flat in a building at sector 44, Seawoods, from Batcha for ₹14.25 lakh of which ₹5 lakh was paid by him and ₹9.5 lakh was paid by Abubacker. However, at the time of registration of the flat, Abubacker was staying in Mumbai and hence Batcha registered the flat in the name of Ali and Bawa.

Abubacker said a few months later, he met the builder and told him that Ali had made no contribution to the flat purchase and hence his name should be removed and Batcha assured him that he would do the same, but it was never done.

“When I lost the house in Karawe village, I told my brother to vacate the tenants in the father’s flat to enable his family to move in. Ali said that the tenants had paid a heavy deposit and they would only vacate when their 11-month agreement tenure would be over. I filed an RTI application and found that Ali had fraudulently made a forged gift deed in 2018 showing that my father had transferred the flat to him and later sold the flat to one Madhuri Jaiswal. My father passed away in 2014, but the gift deed was from 2018,” the complainant said.

Abubacker gave a written complaint to NRI coastal police in November 2022, but there was no action on it. “I used to visit the police station at least thrice a week and I would be given different excuses every time by the lower officers. Meanwhile, the station in-charge also changed and I was frustrated and finally decided to tweet about it. Now, the police have taken cognizance of it,” he added.

Senior police inspector Pramod Toradmal from NRI Coastal police station said, “His complaint against the builder for selling him an illegal apartment is a civil case and we have advised him to take it up legally at the civil court while the criminal case against the brother is registered and we are investigating his claims and have also summoned the accused brother.”

The police have booked the trio under sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 471 (whoever fraudulently or dishonestly uses as a genuine document) of the IPC.