Mother-son duo sell same property to four buyers, held

Deepak Varshney's escapades remind one of Khurana, the villainous property dealer from Delhi portrayed by Boman Irani in the film Khosla ka Ghosla. Only in this case, the property was not sold fraudulently by a property dealer, but by the owner and his mother Narmada Devi. Karn Pratap Singh reports.

Deepak Varshney's escapades remind one of Khurana, the villainous property dealer from Delhi portrayed by Boman Irani in the film Khosla ka Ghosla. Only in this case, the property was not sold fraudulently by a property dealer, but by the owner and his mother Narmada Devi.

HT Image

The mother-son duo sold their flat in south Delhi's Munirka Vihar to four different people and duped them of over R4 crore before planning to shift permanently to Nepal.

The Vasant Vihar police, however, got wind of their fraud and nabbed them on Tuesday. Three others have also been arrested in the case. They have been identified as Naveen Kumar alias Ganesh, Bijender Tokas and Rochak Shamra, all residents of Munirka village.

Chhaya Sharma, DCP (south), said the arrests were made following investigation into the complaint of the duo's first victim, Mahesh Verma.

"Verma told us that after purchasing the flat, he had allowed Varshney to live there on rent considering his ‘helplessness' and his father's illness. Some months later, he learnt that Varshney and his mother had sold the property to three more people," said Sharma. A case was registered and the accused were arrested.

During interrogation, the mother-son duo revealed that they had used forged documents to carry out the fraud. "They first sold the flat to Verma and started living there as tenants. Posing as the property owner, they then sold it to three others and sought each one's permission to live there on rent," the officer said.

Varshney wanted to pay the loans he had taken on high interest rates as he had incurred heavy losses in the share market, police said. "The other three arrested had been blackmailing Varshney after they learnt of his fraud. They had taken Rs 27 lakh from him after making him sell the flat again," added the officer.