Delhi Police make sixth arrest in DDA housing scam

New Delhi, Jan 23 (IANS) Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) Friday arrested one person for providing fake election cards to Dinesh Dral, who was arrested earlier this week in the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) flat allotment scam.

'We have arrested Satbir Singh from Bahadurgarh area Friday for helping in forging an election card,' said Delhi Police spokesman Rajan Bhagat.

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Singh runs a printing press in the Bahadurgarh area. He was brought before a city court Friday and sent him to judicial custody till Feb 6. Dral was also produced before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Digvinay Singh, who sent him to judicial custody till Feb 6.

'Satbir had helped Dinesh Dral, who was arrested Jan 19, in making forged election cards. He was arrested on the basis of Dral's statement,' a police official said.

Dral opened a bank account on forged papers to provide Rs.900,000 to Deepak Kumar, who was earlier arrested for his involvement in the scam.

'Dral had opened a bank account in the name of Rajiv on fake papers. From that account, Dral gave two cheques of Rs.450,000 each to Deepak Kumar,' the official added.

'Though we have not found both Dinesh Dral and Satbir Singh's links with the DDA scam, they have been arrested for opening the bank account on forged papers and helping in making forged documents respectively,' the officer further said.

Meanwhile, the court declined Delhi Police's plea for former DDA employee M.L. Gautam's custody for four more days. The court sent him to 14 days' judicial custody.

The police asked the court for his custody as he was to be confronted with some general category forms for the DDA draw that were recovered from Bahadurgarh.

The draw of lots for 5,238 DDA flats, 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 flat nor had a Permanent Account Number (PAN) card.

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.