K.V. Subramanya

and Raghava M.

BANGALORE: The current real estate boom in and around Bangalore has resulted in criminal gangs threatening real estate agents and landowners into selling their properties at prices much lower than market value. In a few cases, the gangs have even resorted to abduction.

The encounter between the Bangalore police and an armed gang, which had abducted a real estate, on Sarjapur Road in the early hours of Wednesday indicates the emerging trend.

Professional gang

According to the police, the "professional" gang had kidnapped agents and landowners and later released them after obtaining huge ransom from their families.

In the latest case, it had demanded a ransom of Rs. 2 crore from the family of the agent, Nasir Khan, after abducting him at gunpoint from near his house in Hoskote.

In August, the gang had allegedly abducted Lokesh, a wealthy businessman involved in the real estate trade and demanded Rs. 2 crore ransom.

Mr. Lokesh was released after his family paid Rs. 30 lakh, said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Gopal B. Hosur.

Mr. Hosur told The Hindu that while these two instances had come to light, many other such cases could have gone unreported.

In May 2005, a dubious real estate deal led to the death of Abdul Razack, an accomplice of the Mumbai don Chotta Rajan, in an encounter in Ashoknagar.

The Central Crime Branch staff shot dead Razack who was allegedly threatening B.V. Sampath, a landlord and a Congress leader from Jayanagar, into selling four-and-a-half acres of land he owned at Bilekahalli on Bannerghatta Road.

While the market price of the land then was Rs. 1,400 per square feet, Razack was demanding that Sampath sell it at Rs. 400 per square feet, the police said.

Razack, the police said, was the brother of Yusuf Bachchkana, a Mumbai sharpshooter who had shot dead a realtor, Subbaraju, in Seshadripuram on January 5, 2001. Bachchkana is now serving life imprisonment for the murder.

Whitefield

According to sources in the police, the real estate boom triggered by the Information Technology (IT) revolution has changed the face of Bangalore's underworld and led to the emergence of land mafia. With the land value in the city soaring, several underworld operators had turned into real estate agents, they said.

They were particularly active in Whitefield, which had a concentration of IT companies.

Deals among dons

Today there is hardly any underworld gang that is not into the real estate business. To ensure that their business interests do not clash, the underworld elements have divided the areas among themselves, according to the police. In many cases, the gangs had created fake documents and claimed ownership of properties.

The genuine owners had either sought the help of the police or sold the land to the gangsters for a throwaway price in distress, the sources said.

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