GHMC staff manipulated land papers, arrested

HYDERABAD: Cyber crime detectives of the Hyderabad police commissionerate arrested three fraudsters for creating unauthorised property mutation documents by illegally changing property ownership details in the GHMC database.
Police arrested B Polaiah, a data entry operator of GHMC's fire prevention wing at the head office; M Lakhan Singh, of Jiyaguda, a data entry operator of Circle VII of GHMC, in Khairatabad; and Khaja Qutubuddin of Somajiguda, a beneficiary.
On April 13, Mohammed Abbas, a retired excise superintendent from Somajiguda, lodged a complaint with police stating that he sold 220 square yards of a 370-square yard plot at MS Makta to his neighbour Qutubudddin, a fireman working at a training centre in Vattinagulapally, in 2001.
When Abbas visited GHMC Circle 10 office at Khairatabad on April 15 for payment of property tax for the financial year 2017-18, he was shocked to find that Qutubuddin's name was being shown as the owner of the unsold 150 square yard plot too.
When Abbas checked with the GHMC officials, he found out that his name was replaced with that of Qutubuddin by Polaiah and Lakhan Singh.
Based on a complaint lodged by the victim, police registered a criminal case and started investigation. During the probe, police found that Qutubuddin got the ownership records altered by paying Rs 12,000 to some GHMC employees.
Police then obtained the internet protocol (IP) address from where the plot ownership records were changed and then wrote to the concerned internet service provider (ISP) for the address and mobile number of the user. Based on the details given by the ISP, police arrested the accused from their homes.
Polaiah had been working as data entry operator at GHMC, taking care of mutation of properties, valuation of properties, exemptions, and data deletions. After alleged involvement in some fraud, Polaiah was shifted to the fire prevention wing of the GHMC. He later met Jagadish, an outsourced IT programmer of GHMC, and with his help activated some defunct user IDs of GHMC database and started changing ownership details of properties. Lakhan Singh used to bring customers to Polaiah. The three were remanded in judicial custody on Wednesday.