Prankrishna Mondal. (Soumen Bhattacharjee)

A 79-year-old Rajarhat landowner allegedly duped into signing a sale deed for 18 cottahs during a single-cottah deal was found hanging on Wednesday with a suicide note blaming a cartel of brokers and buyers for his death.

Family members said Prankrishna Mondal, found hanging by the branch of a mango tree in his orchard adjoining Action Area III of Rajarhat around 6am, was devastated ever since he learnt that he had been cheated.

“Aamar Baligori Mouza-r shob jomi likhe niyechhe dalal-ra, amay shorboshanto kore diyechhe…Ei karone amar mrityur rasta bechhe nitey holo (The brokers have cheated me of all my land and turned me into a pauper….That is why I have had to choose death),” states what appears to be Prankrishna’s suicide note.

Eldest son Chittaranjan filed a police complaint accusing realty firm Nirbhoy Merchant Pvt Ltd of cheating his father into signing a sale deed for the Baligori Mouza plot, around 4km down an arterial road from the Action Area I stretch of the Rajarhat Expressway.

“Our father had sold a cottah of land at Chakpachuria Mouza for Rs 2 lakh a year ago and was asked to sign two registration documents, one of which he thought was a copy of the original. We came to know much later that the second document was a separate transfer deed for the 18-cottah plot where we live,” Chittaranjan alleged.

Nirbhoy is a consortium of local promoters with an office in Salt Lake that police had not been able to locate till late on Wednesday.

Nirbhoy had paid Prankrishna Rs 2 lakh for a cottah at Chakpachuria Mouza in mid-2009 and registered the property in its name with the Rajarhat block land reforms office.

Nobody from Prankrishna’s family disputed the land deal until around five months ago, when some local brokers informed sons Chittaranjan and Rabin that their father had also sold off the plot at Baligori Mouza where they lived.

“We didn’t take it seriously until some representatives of Nirbhoy landed up on June 18 and started measuring the plot where our two houses (both double-storeyed) stand. We enquired with the land reforms office and found out that our father did sign another deed transferring the entire property for Rs 42 lakh. He was cheated,” said Chittaranjan.

Prankrishna, who couldn’t read English, apparently didn’t bother hiring a lawyer to check the registration document and the “copy” that turned out to be a separate sale deed.

Pijush Saha, one of the owners of Nirbhoy, contested the allegations. “It is a family problem and we have nothing to do with it. We haven’t done anything illegal,” he told Metro.

The superintendent of police of North 24-Parganas, Rahul Srivastava, said the findings of the preliminary investigation indicated that Prankrishna committed suicide, although the authenticity of the note he left behind is still to be verified.

“We have received a complaint from the family of the deceased at New Town police station and are investigating the allegations,” he added.

Prankrishna’s teenaged granddaughter Pratima said he went out for his morning walk around 4am as usual and returned an hour later. “He looked okay but wasn’t his usual cheerful self,” she recounted.

Around 6am, a family member spotted the suicide note placed between the two flaps of the closed door of Prankrishna’s room.

“But Baba wasn’t in the room. We looked around and found him hanging by a rope tied to the branch of a mango tree in the orchard,” said 50-plus Chittaranjan, who works in a private firm.

The Mondals grow vegetables in 12 out of the 18 cottahs they own in Baligori Mouza, where the market rate for land is currently Rs 1.8 to Rs 2 lakh.