Rana Gurjit’s nephew held in land fraud case
Rana Hardeep Singh, son of controversial former cabinet minister’s brother, allegedly duped a farmer of Rs 2.25 crore in Mohali land deal
MOHALI : Rana Hardeep Singh, nephew of controversial former Punjab cabinet minister Rana Gurjit Singh, has been arrested by the Mohali police for allegedly duping a person of Rs 2.25 crore in a land fraud case.
The accused, son of Rana’s elder brother Rana Mahender Singh, was arrested by the police on Friday and has been sent to two-day police remand by a local court.
Police officials said another accused in the case is Hardeep’s brother Rana Prabhdeep Singh, who was arrested in March last year after the registration of the FIR on December 25, 2016, but he managed to get bail as the police could not file challan in the case for three months.
According to complainant Gurcharan Singh, a farmer of Milkh village of Mohali district, he struck a deal in January 2014 to buy a chunk of around 7.5 acre land in Mullanpur block from a paper mill, owned by accused Ranas.
“The deal was fixed for a total of Rs 5 crore and I paid Rs 50 lakh as token money on record with a rider that I will get the registry of the land within three months. Hardeep was claiming that the family had taken a loan of Rs 25 lakh on this land and by using half of the token amount, he would free the land from the co-operative bank. He promised that after clearing bank payments, the property would immediately be registered in my name,” he alleged.
But Hardeep and his brother, the complainant charged, kept using one pretext or the other to avoid registering the property in my name for around one year and by that time, he had paid a total of Rs 2.25 crore to Ranas.
“But they played a big fraud on me as on September 30, 2015, I got to know from the co-operative bank that the total outstanding loan against the land was Rs 21.47 crore. I even requested Ranas to return my money, but they didn’t pay any heed,” reads the statement in the FIR.
Hardeep’s brother Prabhdeep was arrested on March 8, 2017. “But because of pressure created on police by Rana Gurjit, who became a cabinet Minister earlier this year, the police failed to put up the challan in the case, and Prabhdeep automatically got the bail,” charged the complainant.
Police sources said Rana Hardeep played a fraud by forging the documents of the company to sell the land.
As per original FIR registered in September 2015, Hardeep and his father Rana Mahenderjeet Singh, who is chairman of the paper mill, were booked as the two accused in the case.
But later, Mahenderjeet was “cleared” from the case and the name of his second son Prabhdeep was included in the FIR.
When contacted, Mullanpur SHO Ravinderpal Singh did not comment on the delay in arrest of Hardeep.
A case has been registered against Hardeep under Sections 420(cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery for valuable security), 468(forgery for cheating), 471(using genuine as fraud) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy).
Meanwhile, close family friends of Rana insisted that the former minister and Mahender’s family are “not on good terms”.
ACCUSED WAS ARRESTED BY THE POLICE ON FRIDAY AND HAS BEEN SENT TO TWODAY POLICE REMAND BY A LOCAL COURT