Nine held for using forged documents to usurp land

Nine people, including a woman, were arrested for allegedly using forged documents to usurp land meant for the evictees of a demolished slum cluster in west Delhi, police said on Sunday.

Nine people, including a woman, were arrested for allegedly using forged documents to usurp land meant for the evictees of a demolished slum cluster in west Delhi, police said on Sunday.

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The accused have been identified as Sunil Kumar, Dharmender, Rajesh, Joginder, Praveen, Mohinder, Suresh, Ram Kumar and Asha Sharma. The arrests were made on Saturday following a continuing probe into a complaint filed by residents of the resettlement colony in June, 2002, said V Renganathan, additional CP (west).

"The arrested people got plots allotted in their names at slum re-settlement Colony in west Delhi's Bakkarwala by using forged documents to show themselves as having been evicted from a slum cluster demolished at Raghubir Nagar. More arrests are likely in the case," Renganathan said.

According to police, the complaint had been filed by one Anand Kumar Pardhan and other residents of slum re-settlement colony, Bakkarwala, to the Lieutenant Governor (LG), the secretary of the ministry of urban development and power and the deputy commissioner of the slum and JJ Department of the then Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on June 9, 2002.

Police said the complaint alleged that all the 36 resettlement plots of the D-Block located in the slum resettlement colony had been allotted on the basis of forged documents. The allottees were not residents of the slum cluster of F-block in Raghubir Nagar in lieu of which the allotments were to be made.

"All of the arrested had impersonated as evictees and produced documents, such as ration cards later found to have been forged, before the slum committee and even given undertakings in this regard," said Renganathan.

Police said the vigilance department of the municipal corporation conducted an inquiry that revealed that 'some unscrupulous elements' had, in fact, got plots allotted in the name of persons who were not genuine evictees.

"The inquiry also found that some persons had succeeded in getting plots with the connivance of the officials of various departments," Ranganathan said.

"In some cases, the photographs of the allottees had been changed to give undue benefit to bogus applicants ," he added.