NAWALPARASI: Three persons in Kawasoti of the district complained that a land mafia cheated them into transferring ownership of their land to him.

Man Kumari Mahato, Bhupendra Mahato and Sher Bahadur Dhami of Kawasoti Municipality-9 said one Binod Thapa from Kathmandu Metropolitan City-16 deceived them by providing a loan and snatched away the land.

Man Kumar had borrowed Rs 100,000 from Thapa to send her son Jaya Narayan abroad after her neighbour Bijay Kumari Tharuni introduced him.

Likewise, under Tharuni's mediation, Bhupendra and Dhami had also borrowed Rs 100,000 and Rs 250,000 respectively.

They had kept the lands as collateral to take the loan.

The transactions were made on July 18 with a written agreement to pay back both the principal and the interest within two years.

But, they had already handed over the land registration certificates to Thapa.

The District Land Revenue Office (DLRO) record shows that their land plots were sold to Thapa on July 16.

The incident came into light after Thapa sold all those plots to Khim Bahadur Pun, a resident of Dudilabhari-1 of Baglung district, for Rs 4.21 million two days ago.

"They called us at the Land Revenue Office on Thursday and handed our papers back. I saw a red mark on it and asked what it was to an employee there, who said our lands were sold," one of the victims said.

Another victim shared that they had wanted to pay back the loan and cancel the agreement earlier, but the mediator Tharuni had warned against that claiming Thapa was a "Maoist commander."

Meanwhile, DLRO Chief Khagendra Raj Ghimire said the Office transferred the ownership after Thapa was present with all documents.

DSP Parashu Ram Ghimire of the Kawasoti Area Police Office said they would nab the suspect and look into the case once the victims filed a complaint.