Gender-neutral name of land owner helps police uncover land grabbers' fraud; 5 held

CHENNAI: The gender-neutral name of a land owner made the job of City police easy after they found that accused who created fake documents to sell the property worth over Rs 4 crore to a third party had created documents in the name of a woman while the original property was in a man's name.

Police said that two revenue department staff will also be investigated in the matter.

Five persons were arrested by the Land fraud investigation wing of Chennai Police for allegedly making bogus documents and grabbing a 3544 sq ft land in neighbouring Thiruvallur district, belonging to a 88-year-old woman, worth over Rs 4 crore.

Police acted based on a complaint from Lysa Josephine (88) of Saligraman, Chennai. According to her complaint, she owns a 3544 sq ft in Konnur village, Ambattur taluk, Thiruvallur district.

The land was purchased in 1965 by her father, Velankanni. After he died in 1979, the property was inherited by Josephine.

Since Josephine aged, she was not able to check on her property from time to time, which the miscreants had taken advantage of.

After investigations, police arrested R Babu (57) of Arumbakkam, R Gurusamy (63) of T Nagar, A Murugappan (61) of Ayapakkam, U Muthu (55) of Tiruverkadu and V Nagaraj (52) of Villivakkam on Monday for creating fake documents through impersonation.

Investigations revealed that Nagaraj created the fake documents in the name of Velankanni, assuming the name to be a female and then executed a fake sale deed in favour of Babu and Gurusamy to grab the property.

They were produced before a magistrate and remanded to judicial custody.