Cops say arrested AAP MLA forged documents to grab land, dupe people

Manoj Kumar, the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) MLA from Kondli in east Delhi, forged documents with his associate to grab land owned by others, sources in Delhi police said.

Manoj Kumar, the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) MLA from Kondli in east Delhi, forged documents with his associate to grab land owned by others, sources in Delhi police said.

AAP's Kondli MLA Manoj Kumar. (Photo: Facebook)

Kumar was arrested on July 9 in connection with a year-old case of land grabbing. He is alleged to have sold property belonging to someone else by claiming to own the land. In order to sell the property, Kumar purportedly forged property agreements.

Kumar and his associate Lakhpat allegedly prepared fake rent agreements with a purpose to rent out the plots to potential clients. The police are now probing whether more persons were duped by the duo on pretext of selling or renting property.

The FIR was registered against the legislator and his associate last year after they allegedly attempted to sell to a property in Ghazipur to a property dealer named Vijay Kumar in New Ashok Nagar.

In his complaint, the property dealer had accused Kumar of taking `6 lakh as token money in lieu of selling him the property. Kumar handed over to the property dealer an agreement to sell letter on a forged stamp paper bearing fake stamp of public notary, the police said.

“After taking the token money, Kumar never transferred the property to Vijay and began avoiding him. The token money was also not returned to Vijay and whenever he demanded his money back, Kumar claiming himself to be an influential person and the MLA of Kondli constituency threatened him with dire consequences,” a senior police officer said.

The plot, the officer said, actually belonged to the wife of one ML Singh who later sold it to an army man, whose name incidentally is Manoj. Singh in his statement told police that he never sold his property to the AAP MLA or Lakhpat. The police, however, have learnt that the AAP leader, while he worked as a property dealer, was in touch with Singh’s wife for helping them sell the property, said police sources.

Investigation so far in the case has revealed that all the forged documents were prepared by Kumar’s alleged contacts in Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr. Both Kumar and Lakhpat were taken to Bulandshahr on Sunday. However, investigators could not bust the racket that helped the duo procure forged documents, the officer said. The court on Monday sent Kumar to Tihar jail for one day judicial custody.