Mohali SP (rural) Ravjot Kaur Grewal and Zirakpur SHO Onkar Singh at the press conference.
Zirakpur police bust stamp paper scam by arresting five gang members
Harshabab Sidhu
Mohali, February 23, 2021: Zirakpur police have busted a gang running a stamp paper scam at an inter-state level for the past decade. The police have arrested five persons in this regard and recovered 333 unused stamp papers, 11 fake rubber stamps, 125 affidavit tickets, ten entry registers, and a Hyundai Creta car from their possession.
The arrested persons have been identified as Harish Kumar Arora, a resident of Royal Mansion in Dhakauli, Davinder Kumar alias Pappi, a resident of Rajpura in Patiala, Sachin Jindal, a resident of Sunam in Sangrur, Ashok Kumar, a resident of Samana in Patiala and Abhay Bhattacharya, a resident of Green Valley Apartment in Dhakauli. The two more suspects – Sahil Arora and Abhishek, both sons of Harish Kumar Arora, have been identified by the police, who are currently at large.
Mohali SP (rural) Ravjot Kaur Grewal informed that the scam of stamp paper came to light when the police arrested the kingpin Harish following a tip-off. Huge recovery was made from his possession and interrogated him; the various police teams also arrested his associates. The SP informed that the suspects committed the economic offence as they were selling stamp papers without any license. "The kingpin Harish used to buy a large number of blank stamp papers from a vendor. He received hefty amounts from the innocent people who need to manipulate the property's name for personal gain of the old stamp paper on the old date. Harish was selling old stamp papers, which are unnumbered and discontinued now, and making entries in their registers on the previous dates. He also used to affix the fake stamps on the affidavit tickets and put his signature on them to sell the stamp by stamping it on the cut paper and showing it as genuine. Many of his associates were also involved in this scam," said Ravjot Kaur Grewal.
As per the police, the illegal practice had been operating without a license for the last eight years. Apart from Zirakpur, Harish had set up links in various cities of Punjab and other states. He had purchased old stamp papers (without numbers) from different places and had fake rubber stamps from multiple stamp dealers. He had forged the stamp papers by pretending to be an authorized stamp seller. The suspect, Abhay, was making fake stamps. A stamp on the name of a woman, who already died in 2009, recovered from his possession. The suspects had obtained a large amount of money from the public by selling the stamp papers at different times for their benefit by writing expensive land deeds on those old stamp papers in the past and mistyping the registers' entries at various places. They were also using these stamp papers to register illegal colonies. This scam had caused a significant financial loss to various government agencies as well. Harish also pushed his sons Sahil and Abhishek to run this illicit business. They started supplying stamp papers to multiple banks to hide their illegal business.
SP Grewal said, "The amount of fraud has not been cleared yet as the investigation is underway. We are checking each transaction. More persons are likely to be arrested soon."
A case has been registered against the suspects under Sections 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, 120-B of the IPC, and 69 of the Indian Stamp Act at the Zirakpur police station. The suspects are currently in 7-day police custody.