A 40-year-old lawyer was arrested by the economic offences wing (EOW) from Gurugram on Wednesday for allegedly impersonating his neighbour who had died 32 years back to sell his plot in Bajghera , said police on Thursday.
The suspect was identified as Naveen Rana, a resident of Bajghera who practiced at the Gurugram civil court .
Police said that the deceased, Om Prakash, had died in 1993 at the age of 68, and hisfamily had shifted to Sector 4 two decades back, and his 5,172 square feet plot in Bajghera was left vacant. Rana opened two bank accounts in the deceased’s name by forging documents and sold it to a realty firm in 2015 for ₹ 46.5 lakh.
Prakash’s family came to know about the forgery in 2018 and got an FIR registered at Bajghera police station leading to Rana’s arrest soon. However, Rana entered into an agreement with Prakash’s family after which the case against him was quashed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Police said the realty firm moved to court in 2019 to get its money back as ₹46.5 lakh was lying frozen in a private bank’s account which was paid for purchasing the plot. Court had ordered the bank to return the money to the firm last year when it surfaced that Rana, impersonating Prakash once again in May 2023, had already got the hold on his account removed by showing the sale deed to withdraw the entire money.
Investigators said that the bank officials after their internal audit last year, submitted a complaint which was registered at Shivaji Nagar police station on September 10, 2024.
Sandeep Turan, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said that Rana forged documents to impersonate Prakash for opening a bank account with a private bank’s branch in Palam Vihar on December 28, 2015.
“After two days, ₹46.5 lakh was deposited into it following which the bank froze the account terming the transaction suspicious. After 10 months, Rana got the account transferred to Sadar Bazar branch where he left it untouched for two years,” he said.
Turan that the forged account was made operational only in May 2023 when he again approached the bank impersonating Prakash and cited that money deposited in the account was amassed from his property sale.
“He had submitted the forged deed. Bank released the hold from the account immediately after which he transacted all the money into his actual account. Meanwhile, the total amount had risen to ₹59.72 lakh with interest,” he said.
Turan said that Rana kept separate SIM cards in the name of Prakash to call the bank officials or realty firm to avoid suspicion. “Several more arrests will take place in the case as there is suspicion of involvement of bankers and government officials who might have helped in executing the sale deed,” he added.