Noida: Developer held for fraud

Noida: A 50-year-old real estate developer was arrested by the Noida police on Wednesday for allegedly duping several people by selling them flats in an illegal

Noida: A 50-year-old real estate developer was arrested by the Noida police on Wednesday for allegedly duping several people by selling them flats in an illegal project at Ghaziabad’s Indirapuram.

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The suspect was identified as Mukesh Khurana, the owner and director of a real estate firm whose corporate office is located in Noida’s Sector 63. According to the police, a complaint against his firm came to the Phase 3 police station on October 6.

The complainant, Sunita Singh, a native of Meerut, alleged that her family had invested ₹91 lakh in the said project in 2014. “A high-rise was being developed in Indirapuram. We had paid ₹25 lakh, ₹26 lakh and ₹40 lakh for three flats in the project for which we were supposed to get the possession in 2016. However, even after six years the project did not take off,” said the woman in her complaint.

Police officials said that Khurana, a resident of Delhi, had been absconding for a while. On Wednesday, the developer was nabbed while he was visiting his corporate office, they said.

“He has 86 cases against him in Delhi which were registered with the Economic Offences Wing there. We also have more complainants coming forward now for fraud by him,” said Jitendra Dikshit, station house officer, Phase 3 police station.

Dikshit said that the land the suspect had allotted for this project was disputed and the approval papers which, he claimed, he got from the local authorities in Ghaziabad were fake.

According to the police, Khurana had started the project in 2014 without any approval, and at the same time he started the selling units to unsuspecting buyers. But the project never started and he simply took all the money. He has also duped people in other projects and investigation is being done to identify all those cases as well, said the police.

Khurana was produced before a magistrate and later sent to jail, the police said.