Gwalbanshi kin too booked for land grab; absconding

NAGPUR: After urban land grab victims, now farmers from rural areas are coming forward to lodge complaints against the Gwalbanshis.
On Wednesday, Rana Pratap Nagar police registered an offence against Dilip Gwalbanshi’s nephew Prem Yadav (Gwalbanshi), who fraudulently procured signatures of the farmer, who owned 3 hectare land at Gonhi (Khurd) in Nagpur district, on registry papers.
Also on Wednesday, ACP Somnath Waghchoure, who is actively looking into every single land grab case, raided the residence of Sidhu Chauhan, alias, Sondaya at Hazaripahad. The cops recovered 14 registry documents from the place, relating to properties worth crores, the ACP told TOI.
“Following a tip off from my informer, I carried out the search at Sondaya’s house along with my team at 11.30am. There were 14 land registry papers, power of attorney, and agreement papers belonging to urban and rural land, which I immediately seized,” informed Waghchoure. He also added the team recovered several blank stamp papers also. However, Sondaya could not be arrested since his direct involvement is yet to come to fore. The seized material would be analysed later said the ACP, who is leading the investigation after DCP Rakesh Kalasagar was transferred from the city.
Somnath, who is personally listening to all complainants, said Dube, a resident of Besa in Manewada, owned land worth Rs4 crore. He claimed to have mortgaged his land to Anil Deshmukh, Prem’s agent, for Rs2 lakh since he wanted money urgently for his son’s marriage around a year-and-a-half-ago. Prem and Anil told him to visit their Khamla office to sign the mortgage papers. Accordingly, Dube reached the office and signed the papers, but he never received copies of the documents.
A few days back, Dube went to the registrar office, where he was told the land had been sold to one Sheikh Ashfaque Sattar, who works as an office boy at Prem’s office. Dube claimed in his complaint that he had approached Anil through a mediator, who had introduced them as a moneylender. Somnath said an offence of fraud and land grab was registered against Prem, who is absconding, and Anil, who was arrested. The latter was produced before the court, which remanded him in police custody for six days.