Rajkot: The Rajkot police made several revelations in the fake sales deed racket to usurp properties, which was running under the nose of revenue officials without any notice for the last 15 months.
The main accused, Jaydeep Zala, and his two accomplices used to delete the scanned copies of handwritten sale deeds of old properties registered with govt offices in govt records. They created forged sale deeds and uploaded them in govt records.
Bhargav Zankat, Inspector of Pradhyuman Nagar police station, said, "The accused used to tamper with the documents registered prior to 1972. They targeted the properties which were not sold after 1972, considering the owner is either dead or living abroad."
The police found 17 tampered sale deeds of the lands belonging to the survey numbers of Kothariya, Raiya, Mavdi, Magharvada, and Rajkot taluka.
Deputy commissioner of police (DCP) Jagdish Bangarwa said, "The accused used to prepare the fake land ownership documents based on the original documents. They kept the document number and date of registration the same but changed the name of the property owner. In order to retain the same stamp of the register office, they were using photoshop."
ccording to police sources, the accused made a mistake which brought this scam to light. "While they were trying to delete an original registration of a property in the Magharvada area, they mistakenly deleted another file, and an internal inquiry was conducted for this deletion. In that inquiry, this racket came to light," said a police officer.
The police are searching for the other two accused: Harsh Saheliya, alias Harsh Soni, a former data entry operator, and Kishan Chavda, a lawyer.