Khosla ka Ghosla, real-life edition: 65-year-old held for property fraud

A senior citizen (65) was arrested for his alleged involvement in his bid to sell a plot of land in south-west Delhi’s Dwarka while using forged documents.

His alleged crime has an uncanny resemblance with the 2006 Bollywood flick Khosla Ka Ghosla.

Delhi Police explained the arrested accused Abhay Veer Batra’s modus operandi.

Batra would grab an unoccupied piece of land, forge documents to show the property in his name and then use the papers to either compel the actual owner to strike a deal or sell off the plot to him at a throwaway price, said RP Meena, additional deputy commissioner of police (ADCP) (Dwarka), Delhi Police.

Batra’s criminal act has echoes of Khosla Ka Ghosla, where a greedy property dealer had used fake documents to grab the land of an unsuspecting common man, whose role was essayed by actor Anupam Kher in the film, said the police.

However, there was a primary difference between the reel and the real.

In the film, Kher’s family had staged an elaborate drama to deceive the usurper and got back their plot, but in reality it was the Delhi Police that cracked the case.

Batra has been accused of 17 similar cases of cheating and fraud registered against him since 1999. Most of the cases were filed in areas in west Delhi such as Hari Nagar, Janakpuri, Vikaspuri, and Nangloi. He has also been charged for a similar offence in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj.

Batra’s luck ran out, when he got busted in the latest case.

On June, 2019, his latest victim, Kishore Chand Aggarwal, visited Dwarka (North) police station.

“Aggarwal told us that he was the owner of a 209-square metre plot in Sector 13, Dwarka. But he had come to know from property dealers that another man was trying to sell the property by an illegal possession over his plot,” said ADCP Meena.

Aggarwal had found about the illegal occupation of his property upon a visit to the plot, where he saw building materials were lying scattered in a bid to erect a boundary wall around the land, said Meena.

“Our preliminary probe revealed that a man named Batra was trying to sell the plot. Prima facie, it is a crime because both the parties were producing documents to claim an ownership of the property. We registered a case of cheating and criminal conspiracy,” he said.

Soon, the police verified the authenticity of the documents of both the parties.

Aggarwal’s documents showed that he had purchased the property from its previous owner through a sales deed on August 3, 2004.

“Batra’s documents showed that he had purchased the property from a woman through a general power of attorney (GPA) and a sale agreement on January 7, 2004. The documents showed that the woman had bought the land from its previous owner,” said the ADCP.

The police visited the previous owner of the plot and allegedly confirmed that he had sold the property to Aggarwal. “He identified Aggarwal’s signatures on the documents and said he didn’t know the woman in question,” said Meena.

Later, though the police tried to trace the woman, who was mentioned as the owner of the plot in Batra’s documents, she turned out to be a fictitious character.

“Batra had forged all the documents related to Aggarwal’s plot ,” said the ADCP.

Batra, who lives in Hari Nagar with his family, was arrested last Saturday.