Police have filed a case against two people who allegedly cheated a family of Rs6.8 lakh by promising them flat at a MHADA building.
The complainant, Farzana Aslam Sheikh, 39, approached the police on June 8 and narrated the ordeal that her family had been through since 2020.
The Sheikh family, residents of Vashinaka in Chembur, were looking for a flat. They met a man named Elias Ahmed aka Sallu. Sallu told the family that he had connections at BMC and that the family was eligible for Maharashtra government’s Mahatma Gandhi Patakranti Yojana. He said that thescheme would provide up to Rs8 lakh to them.
Believing Sallu, the family started giving money to him. Sallu promised to acquire a house in RNA Park, Vashinaka, by MHADA. By January 2021, Sheikh had given Sallu almost Rs2.5 lakh, after which he showed them a house at RNA Park, along with the house’s allotment letter headed by MHADA. In the name of formalities and procedure, he demanded Rs2 lakh more.
After getting the keys and allotment letter, they started with the basic work of their new home when in February 2021, the building’s management told the family that their papers were bogus. “They locked the house and took the keys away,” Sheikh said.
When the family contacted Sallu, he reasoned that he would need Rs1 lakh to “sort out” the BMC officials but by June 2021, they learned that their supposed house was allotted to somebody else.
“Sallu suggested that we approach the court and apply for a stay order on the house. Meanwhile, to do all these things, he asked us to send Rs15,000 to a man whose number he sent us, and Rs5,000 to his bank account. Most transactions via cheque were made at a BMC office in Deonar, and some were at his office at Cheetah Camp,” added Sheikh.
Sallu kept making more fake promises about the house and the money that he was given. He even provided some cheques to the family, but all of them bounced, said Sheikh.
Meanwhile, after registering a case against Sallu and another man named Abdul Latif, the police said they have sent them a notice to cooperate with the investigation. However, they didn’t show up on the first notice, so yet another will be sent today. “If they don’t cooperate with us, with the permission of the DCP, we will make the arrest. In cases like these, gradually more accused are added as many people are involved in these types of crimes,” said the investigating officer at RCF Police station.
Police have added criminal offences against the two accused under sections 34 (common intent), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 471 (using forged documents as genuine), among others of the Indian Penal Code.
