455 home buyers were duped by fake real estate ‘director’

New Delhi: Manoj Bhardwaj, a fake real estate ‘director’ was arrested by Delhi Police in a high profile real-estate fraud case. Bhardwaj, who projected himself as a builder/land dealer, operated in a manner similar to the script of Bollywood film Khosla ka Ghosla, in which a family sells off a government plot by faking it as its property. He also took his prospective buyers on a trip to plots that did not belong to him.

The police have received over 450 complaints against the accused from home buyers in Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR) over the past few years, and suspect that many more are yet to seek legal action against him. Ishwar Singh, DCP (South), said “Initially, Bhardwaj started a company in the name of Arun Dev Builders Pvt. Ltd. Later, he started many other sister companies in the names of his relatives.”

Many complaints were also being lodged at South Delhi’s Neb Sarai police station as the address mentioned in the receipts given to the victims mentioned the area. The South District police constituted a team and nabbed the accused from Devli village last week after receiving a tip-off on his movement.