Jangaon police nab 15 in Dharani and Bhu Bharathi registration scam, nine absconding

Jangaon police arrested 15 members of a gang involved in a land registration scam on Dharani and Bhu Bharathi portals in Jangaon and Yadadri districts, while nine suspects remain absconding. The fraud caused a Rs 3.90 crore loss to the State exchequer.

Hanamkonda: Jangaon police arrested 15 members of a gang in a scam involving land registrations on Dharani and Bhu Bharathi portals in Jangaon and Yadadri districts while nine others remain absconding. The scam resulted in a loss of Rs 3.90 crore to the State exchequer.

The police seized Rs 63.19 lakh in cash, Rs 1 lakh in a bank account, property documents worth approximately Rs 1 crore, one car, two laptops, five desktop computers and 17 mobile phones from the accused.

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Speaking to the media here on Friday, Warangal Commissioner of Police Sunpreeth Singh informed that the main accused Pasunuri Basavaraju and Jella Pandu, who ran an online service at Yadagirigutta of Bhongir district.

One of the accused, Ganesh, got in touch with online service centres’ operators saying that he would pay the registration amount due through an NRI account. He collected the entire amount from the farmers through Mee-Seva centres and distributed a commission to the online service providers and intermediaries from the collected money, sending the rest to the main accused.

Basavaraju would take these challans (payment slips) and use the ‘Inspect Edit Application’ on the Dharani/Bhu Bharathi website to reduce the challan amount. He would then edit the challan via mobile and send it back to the farmers.

The accused used a mobile application to alter the receipts issued on the website for the fees paid to the government, reducing the amount payable. They would then submit these fake challans, showing the reduced amount, through intermediaries at the local tahsildar or registration office.

In Jangaon and Bhongir districts, the main accused personally registered Dharani and Bhu Bharathi documents, which were supposed to be registered through Mee-Seva and online services, on the website. For this, the main accused paid commissions ranging from 10 to 30 percent to others.

In this case, the accused committed fraud in transactions related to 1,080 documents in Jangaon and Bhongir districts. 22 cases, seven in Jangaon district and 15 in Bhongir district, were registered in connection with the scam, the CP revealed.

The CP appreciated Jangaon DCP Rajamahendra Naik, ASP Pandari Chetan, Jangaon Inspector Satyanarayana Reddy and Raghunathpally Inspector Srinivas Reddy along with other SIs and staff for nabbing the gang.