They forged documents, collected money from prospective customers for sale of land — Superintendent of Police Sanuram Bhattarai, CIB spokesperson

Kathmandu, September 6

The Central Investigation Bureau of Nepal Police has arrested 12 members of a forgery racket from the capital for trying to defraud a person of property worth around Rs 700 million.

Those arrested are Rajan Prasad Lamsal, 45, of Makawanpur, Niraj Kumar Manandhar, 40, of Kathmandu, Jeet Bahadur Magar, 33, of Ramechhap, Punya Prasad Kharel, 40, of Morang, Raj Kumar Tamang, 40, of Kavre, Himal Maharjan, 31, and Chiribabu Maharjan, 55, of Kathmandu, Amrit Thapa Magar, 28, of Bara, Office of Company Registrar assistant registrars Narayan Prasad Pokharel and Umeshman Joshi and OCR technical employees Ashish Maharjan and Pushpakala Rai. Two suspected employees of the OCR are at large.

Superintendent of Police Sanuram Bhattarai, CIB spokesperson, said Rajan, Neeraj, Jeet Bahadur and Punya Prasad were the prime suspects of the multimillion-rupee fraud. “The gang forged government documents posing Jeet Bahadur as Ram Niranjan Jatiya of India, who resides in Chundevi of Kathmandu and is the only shareholder promoter and chairperson of Shankar Electrical Industries Pvt Ltd, and were found collecting advance money from prospective customers for the sale of land registered in the name of that company,” he said.

The land which the gang was preparing to sell is located in Kathmandu (three ropanis in Baluwatar and 15 ropanis in Satungal), Myagdi and Nuwakot, and worth around Rs 700 million. “Jeet Bahadur, who had been working as a helper in the house of Jatiya for the past 16 years, stole the documents related to his master’s company and got Rajan and Niraj to forge the documents. After counterfeiting the documents, Jeet Bahadur presented himself as Jatiya and submitted an application to the OCR stating that the Indian national had sold all the shares of the company to him with the objective of selling the land registered in the name of the company,” Bhattarai said.

The accused face multiple charges, including theft, cybercrime, fraud and organised crimes.

The investigation report has been submitted to the Office of District Attorney, Kathmandu, seeking maximum punishment for the racketeers. A forged document seized by CIB shows that a meeting of board of directors of the company had elected Jeet Bahadur as chairperson after he bought all the shares (25,000 units) and mentions Jatiya as a director.

As per the decisions taken by the OCR on July 13 and 16, the share records maintained in the name of Jatiya were transferred to Jeet Bahadur ‘on the basis of the decision of the board of directors to elect him as the chairperson’. “Jeet Bahadur and others received an advance amount of Rs 10 million from Rajbhai Shrestha of Kathmandu to sell him 14 anas of land located in Baluwatar. They also collected an advance amount of Rs 20 million from Prem Sagar Sapkota of Chitwan to sell 15 ropanis of land located in Satungal,” Bhattarai said.