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| The two builders being escorted off court premises. Telegraph picture |
Bhubaneswar, Aug. 4: Two builders were arrested from the city yesterday. While one had allegedly cheated a land buyer at Saheed Nagar, the other one was taken into custody for encroaching upon another person’s land at Laxmi Sagar.
Saheed Nagar police arrested real estate developer Bhanja Prabha Mohanty, 50, who had cheated a woman of Rs 10 lakh promising her to provide a plot of land in the area.
The police said they took action against the builder following a non-bailable warrant issued by a local court four years ago. They said Mohanty had taken Rs 14 lakh from the woman to sell her a plot of land at Saheed Nagar in 1999. Later, the woman had gone abroad along with her husband.
The builder did not, however, give them the promised plot. Following repeated requests by the woman, the builder had returned her only Rs 4 lakh. He had been avoiding payment of the remaining amount, said a police officer.
The woman had registered a civil case in a court. As the defaulter did not pay back the money to the woman despite a court order, the court issued a non-bailable warrant against him.
“He was absconding since then. Acting on a tip off, we arrested him from his office at Saheed Nagar. He was subsequently produced in court in the afternoon,” said a police officer.
In the second incident, Laxmi Sagar police arrested two persons, including a builder, for forcibly barricading a land belonging to another person at Station Bazaar near Cuttack-Puri road. Both the accused, builder Pranakrushna Nayak, 40, and his associate Sudhir Kumar Parida, 48, were sent to jail as the court rejected their bail pleas.
Sukanti Behera had lodged a complaint with the police alleging that Nayak, who owned a plot of land beside her land, had fenced some portions from her area forcibly.
She had alleged that Nayak had brought Parida, a goon, to terrorise her if she protested. Acting on the complaint, the police arrested both Nayak and Parida.
A police officer said that as land price was soaring in the city, many builders were taking advantage of people belonging to weaker sections. People not living in the city, but owning land here, were the easy targets.
“Everyday, at least two to three such cases come to each police station in the city,” said the officer.