Delhi Police make fifth arrest in DDA housing scam

New Delhi, Jan 19 (IANS) Delhi Police Tuesday arrested a direct selling agent for opening a bank account on forged papers to provide Rs.900,000 to one of the accused arrested for irregularities in the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) flat allotment.

'We have arrested Dinesh Dral from Dwarka for allegedly opening a bank account in the name of Rajiv on fake papers. From that account, Dral gave two cheques of Rs.450,000 each to accused Dinesh Kumar,' said a police officer.

'Though we have not found Dral's links with the DDA scam, he was arrested for opening the bank account on forged papers,' the officer added.

Deepak Kumar, who allegedly blew the lid off the scam after he fell out with some fellow real estate agents, and three others - retired DDA employee M.L. Gautam, real estate agent Raju Ram and Laxmi Narayan Meena - have already been arrested.

Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW), probing the scam in the allotment of over 5,000 dwellings, Monday registered two fresh cases against Deepak Kumar for obtaining two PAN (permanent account number) cards in separate names.

The draw for flats, which are priced between Rs.700,000 to Rs.7.7 million, took place Dec 16. Delhi Police started investigations after a man who was allotted a flat in the draw told the police that he had neither applied for a DDA flat nor had a PAN card.