Five individuals have been booked for allegedly impersonating a man who died nearly 40 years ago to illegally sell a land parcel which he had already disposed of before his death, police said on Saturday.
The 1.3-acre plot in Fatehpur Billoch, Ballabhgarh, currently valued at over ₹5 crore, was originally owned by Ganpati Prasad. He had sold it to Harbir Singh and his five brothers in 1981. The six had jointly purchased a 2.5-acre land parcel from three different owners, including Ganpati, for ₹16,000.
However, the mutation of the land sold by Ganpati never took place in government records as no application had been made for the same. This allowed one of Harbir’s younger brothers, Kishanbir Singh, to exploit the oversight. He allegedly impersonated Ganpati using a forged Aadhaar card to transfer half of the family land to his daughter, Kusum Devi, in June 2024 to sell it off later.
Investigators said Kishanbir and his associates had been pressuring Harbir’s family to evict the land concerned, on which they had been living for decades.
A police official privy to the investigation said Harbir’s son, Deepak Singh, an Indian Army commando, obtained a copy of the sale deed. It was evident from the document that Kishanbir had impersonated Ganpati.
“The document showed that “Ganpati” had sold the plot to Kishanbir’s daughter. However, Ganpati died way back in 1986, while the sale deed was executed in Kusum’s favour on June 10, 2024. Kusum’s husband is suspected to have played a key role in the fraud. The documents are clearly forged as Kishanbir’s photo appears everywhere in the deed and he’s falsely identified as Ganpati Prasad.”
Investigators said Harbir’s son met the Faridabad police commissioner and sought help. Subsequently, an FIR was registered on Friday against five suspects, including Kishanbir, Kusum, her husband Bhupender Singh—who planned the conspiracy and also forged the documents—and a lawyer, for cheating and forgery under the Indian Penal Code at City Ballabgarh police station.
Yashpal Yadav, public relations officer of Faridabad Police, said: “We have sought all the existing and old records from Ballabgarh tehsil office to ascertain how the fraud transpired,” adding that preliminary investigation established that Kishanbir impersonated Ganpati to fraudulently sell the plot. Further investigation remains underway.