Gurugram: ‘Son’ tries to sell childless couple’s houses, 2 booked

GURUGRAM: Two men plotted and attempted to sell a couple of houses belonging to an elderly couple in Sector 31 using fake documents. Police said a potential buyer contacted the couple, saying their son was selling the property, which gave the fraud away as the couple has no son.The couple, Vivek and Priyanka Bhatnagar, who are in their 60s, complained about the fraud at Sadar police station in 2021. But cops finally filed an FIR on Tuesday after a second complaint, saying there might have been some glitch earlier.On September 4, 2021, the couple received a WhatsApp call from Tarun Arora, a property dealer. Arora told the couple that he is from Gurgaon and has paid Rs 15 lakhs in advance to their son and planned to do a real-time gross settlement (RTG) of one crore for purchasing their two houses in Sector 31.“We told him (Arora) we don’t have a son and are not selling our houses. Then the property dealer shared documents, including a forged GPA (general power of attorney) document and passport, from Karan Bhatnagar, who claimed to be our son, and an HSVP transfer certificate in the name of Lakhvinder Singh, also a property dealer,” Bhatnagar told the cops.The couple alleged Lakhvinder Singh and Karan Bhatnagar tried to sell their two houses while they were away in the US. They retrieved the CCTV footage from their homes and saw a man pretending to be Karan Bhatnagar and Lakhvinder Singh impersonating an HSVP official.An FIR was filed against the two fraudsters under IPC sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (whoever fraudulently and dishonestly uses any document as genuine), and 120 B (punishment for criminal conspiracy).“We are investigating the matter. We have made no arrests yet. When the couple complained in 2021, the officers were different,” said a police officer.