One more arrested in DDA housing scam

New Delhi, Jan 11 (IANS) A Delhi-based financer was arrested Sunday for his alleged involvement in the irregularities in the allotment of over 5,000 flats by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).

'Deepak, 34, has been arrested from Pashchim Vihar area on charges of planning and executing a conspiracy in the scam,' Delhi Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat told IANS.

Deepak is a financer and arranges money, said a police official.

Delhi Police had Friday arrested Laxmi Narayan Meena, a resident of Rajasthan's Jhunjhunu, on charges of cheating, forgery and impersonation.

He was presented before a court Saturday and was remanded into eight-day police custody.

Meena, a former State Bank of India employee, was arrested after a man who was allotted a flat in the draw of lots told the police that he had neither applied for a DDA flat nor had a permanent account number (PAN) card.

Meena had allegedly applied for DDA flats in the names of several people in his village, the police told the court.

The investigating officer submitted that three other accused whose names cropped up in the probe - Deepak, Suresh and Narender - were yet to be arrested and Meena's questioning was needed for this purpose.

The police have also seized the software used by DDA for the draw of lots for over 5,000 flats in the national capital and sent it to a forensic laboratory in Hyderabad to find out whether it was tampered with to help rig the draw.

A case under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) dealing with cheating by impersonation and forgery has been lodged.