Commisionerate Police busts land fraud racket, arrests 5 accused

Bhubaneswar: Special Crime Unit of the Commisionerate Police has reportedly busted a land fraud racket and arrested a total of five persons for their involvement in the case.

The arrested persons have been identified as Bikash Chandra Panda, Simanchal Mohanty, Prasanna Kumar Mishra, Biswajit Behera and Sanjaya Kumar Sarangi.

According to reports, on 10.12.22 as per order of the JMFC(O) a case was registered in Chandaka Police Station and subsequently the case was taken over charge by Special Crime Unit on 10.8.23 basing on its gravity as an organized racket of fraudster were involved.

In her allegation, a complainant, from Ganjam, reported that she was having a piece of land in Paikrapur Mouza and without her knowledge, her land was sold to two different ladies in the year 2019 with forged and factious documents.

This case was investigated by a team consisting of Sanjeev Satpathy, ADCP, K.K. Hari Prasad, ACP and Inspector Bhagyashree Swain. The team examined all aspect of the case and could know that a larger racket of professional fraudster has taken part in this fraudulent transaction of the land who have prepared forged sale deed, voter card and other documents and sold the land consisting of 100 dcml to two ladies and also have taken Rs 60 lakhs from them.

Investigation of the case so far revels that one Chnimaya Dalei of Nayagarh contacted one Biswajit Behura, whose name and mobile number was posted in an online property sale portal. When Chinmaya Dalei contacted Biswajit Behura, he in turn introduced Bikash Panda and assured him to give a good piece of land in outskirt of Bhubaneswar.

Also Read: Cuttack: Man Who Attempted To Rape Woman On Pretext Of Giving Lift Arrested

Accordingly, the accused persons in a criminal conspiracy with Simanchal Mohanty of Jagatpur, Prasanna Mishra of Chowdwar, prepared forged sale deed in respect of the land owned by Sanjukta Panigrahi and sold 100 dcml to Puspalata Swain and Kamala Swain who are relatives of Simanchal Dalei by producing an imposter as Sanjukta Panigrahi.

The fraudsters in connivance with the Head Clerk of Sub-Registrar Khandagiri Sanjaya Ku Sarangi deliberately on dt 26.06.19 applied for a home visit and registration of the sale deed and the application was accepted and accordingly as per Rule 38(2) of India Registration Act, Sanjaya Ku Sarangi was authorized to do home visit. But surprisingly on the same day instead of doing a home visit in Ganjam where the applicant reside and has mentioned that as she is ill she can’t come to the office physically, the Head Cleark Sarangi did the formalities on the road in Bhubaneswar and identified the imposter as Sanjukta Panigrahi and subsequently on his report the land was transferred to the buyer.

The Modus Operandi which the fraudsters were adopting was quite unique. Initially they were posting advertisement on the online property sale portal and once the victim contact them on the given mobile number, they used to convince them by producing the forged sale deed and other documents which creates a sense of believe in the minds of the buyer to accept the forged documents to be genuine.

The accused persons arrested are professional fraudster and previously arrested in similar type of crime vide Chandaka PS Case No 132/19 and are in court bail.

The accused persons are suspected to have participated in many such similar type of cases which is under investigation.

The accused persons arrested are mostly land broker, from whom many suspected forged land records, official seals of different Tehsildar, Sub-Registrar and other articles have been seized.

Role of different accused in this case:

• Biswajit Behura- He used to contact the victim and introduced them to his associates.
• Bikash Panda,Prasanna Mishra – They with the help of their associates prepared the forged documents and arranged the imposter.
• Simanchal Mohanty- He has prepared the forged sale deed which was used for the transfer of the land.
• Sanjaya Ku Sarangi- He is the Head Clerk of Sub-Registrar Khandagiri who helped the accused persons in making home visit and identified the imposter.

In this case many other accused persons are still absconding and the Special Crime Unit is working on it for their early arrest.

During house search of the accused persons forged land records, Adhar Card and seals of different offices has been seized which were used to prepare the forged sale deed and other land records.

Also Read: Former Indian Hockey Captain Prabodh Tirky Joins Congress Party

The Special Crime Unit is trying to unweave the entire racket and involvement of other accused and there involvement in other similar cases. The five accused persons were forwarded today and will be brought on police remand for further collection of evidences in this case.

Further it is requested, if anyone are victim of the fraud done by the arrested accused persons, they may please contact Special Crime Unit BBSR-CTC.