Cops arrest two in land sale fraud case

Lucknow: A man and his aide were arrested in a case of embezzlement of crores of rupees using fake land documents. The accused was also involved in incidents of assault and robbery with the victim and was arrested in Barabanki.
Police had earlier arrested other co-accused in the case, who are currently in jail, including Mukesh Kumar, Ramkishore Dutt Tiwari, Rajkumar and Avinash Singh, said police. The accused was identified as Md Zaheer Ahmed, originally from Basti, who prepared a fake seal and signature of the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) for the plot of the grandmother of victim Ajay Singh. He got it registered on behalf of an LDA officer and, based on a fake deed, in connivance with the employees of the sub-registrar office, made the original documents go missing. He pasted fake documents and sold the plot to one Shivani Singh in a fraudulent manner, embezzling Rs 1.9 crore.
He went to the fraudulently sold land along with his co-accused and, in order to forcefully take possession of the plot, beat up labourers, threatened to kill them, and even decamped with the CCTV DVR from the plot. The matter came to light when, in Feb 2024, Ajay filed a complaint accusing multiple people, including Shivani Singh, to whom the land was fraudulently sold. After this, police registered a case booking Shivani as well. But later, during the probe, the accused, along with their co-accused, prepared a fake seal and signature of the LDA for the plot belonging to Ajay's grandmother, Shanti Devi, and got it registered on behalf of the LDA officer.
During the investigation, based on evidence, section 392 IPC (robbery) was amended to section 395 IPC (dacoity), and sections of cheating, impersonation and criminal conspiracy were added. The name of the accused Shivani Singh was separated from the investigation, and the name of accused Md Zaheer and other accused involved in the incident were brought to light, said additional DCP, east zone, Pankaj Singh.