There has been a steady increase in the number of land grabbing complaints lodged with the city police in the last three months. The office of the Police Commissioner alone received 65 complaints from May 15 to August 19 out of which 17 are being investigated by the Central Crime Branch (CCB).
The rest has been directed to the respective police stations and investigations that followed have resulted in the arrest of a few political bigwigs and some fraudulent land brokers.
According to Assistant Commissioner of Police (Land Grabbing Wing of CCB) J. Chandrasekaran, there has been a sudden rise in complaints following the Statewide drive to apprehend land grabbers and return property to the rightful owners. “In Chennai, the land sharks had targeted many vacant plots mainly in areas in and around Virugambakkam, Koyambedu, Adyar, Thiruvanmiyur and Neelankarai,” the officer said.
The document of three grounds on Mehta Nagar, Nelson Manickam Road, was given as collateral by complainant Ramalingam to Arunachalam in 1973 for a loan amount of Rs.15,000. Arunachalam misplaced the document but obtained a duplicate document for Ramalingam through the set legal procedures. Subsequently, Arunachalam died, sources said.
“The lost land documents were accidently found in February 2011 by two sisters related to Arunachalam at their home. The duo, one of them a retired school teacher, created fake documents as if Arunachalam had issued them a power of attorney and later sold the land,” said an investigating officer. The person who bought the property from them filed a rectification petition in a court and managed to obtain an alternate survey number for the plot which happened to be the survey number of a neighbouring plot belonging to a veteran Telugu actor, the officer added.
A CCB team arrested the accused, Premakumari (52) and her sister Chandranatham (69), and are searching for the buyer and the two land brokers.
