Saturday, 22 JULY 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Dehradun police have arrested two gang members Gagandeep Kumar and Muntjir who attempted to retrieve property documents that reportedly belong to Uttar Pradesh’s land mining mafia Haji Iqbal from the district administration’s records by posing as officials of the Income Tax department. Kumar had talked to several officials over the phone posing as a senior official and had reportedly duped many. He has gone to acting school and acted in several Haryanvi films that possibly helped him to pretend to be a government official, said the senior superintendent of police Daleep Singh Kunwar. He said that the revenue sub inspector of Vikasnagar Tehsil filed a complaint against both accused.
He said, “She said that the sub divisional magistrate of Vikasnagar told her to find out details of a property stating that he has received a call from the joint commissioner of Dehradun. The fake commissioner asked him to provide details of Haji Iqbal’s land in Vikasnagar as he claimed that his department need it to carry out a raid. He also asked for the hard copy of the Khatauni of the land which was provided to him as per SDM’s order. The SDM became suspicious of the fake commissioner after he contacted him again.” The SDM later contacted the income tax department which clarified that there are no such officers there.
A team was formed to investigate the matter that soon arrested both accused from Vikasnagar with the help of electronic surveillance. The accused have also committed land fraud in the past and have gone to jail as well. The accused Kumar stated that he went to jail last year in UP in a fraud case where he met a con man named Mahesh who used to scam people in the name of selling lands. “He learnt tricks from Mahesh and then made a plan to sell the said land in Vikasnagar at Rs 50 lakh. They needed details and necessary documents of the land to forge documents so they decided to act as officials from the income tax department,” said SSP. He said that contact numbers of several officials in various departments were available to the accused.
“We are looking into their crime history and will act accordingly if any new information comes to light during the investigation,” added SSP.
