Land registered by creating fake owner

By A Staff Reporter Kathmandu, June 20: Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) of Nepal Police has detained five persons allegedly involved in registering a land plot worth Rs. 70 million by creating a fake land owner.  

Making the arrested persons public at a press conference organised at the CIB on Sunday, police said that their preliminary investigation showed that a land plot of 361.95 square metres in Kirtipur Municipality Ward No. 2 of Kathmandu was found sold to a third party by producing a fake death certificate of its real owner Shanta Lohani and a fake citizenship certificate of her husband Tara Nidhi Lohani. 

Additional Inspector General (AIG) and Chief of the Bureau Uttam Raj Subedi said that all five persons were arrested a day after a complaint was filed at the CIB on June 15, 2022.

Preliminary investigation showed that a land plot of 361.95 square metres in Kirtipur Municipality Ward No. 2 of Kathmandu was found sold to a third party by producing a fake death certificate of its real owner.

A special team deployed from Kathmandu detained them from Kathmandu and outside the Valley, he said.   

Superintendent of Police (SP) and Spokesperson for the CIB Shyam Kumar Mahato said that the land was found sold to Sunita Karmacharya at an underestimated value of Rs. 30.7 million from the Kalanki-based Land Revenue Office on February 22, 2021. 

Police investigation showed that real land owner Shanta Devi Lohani and her husband Tara Nidhi have been living in Japan for the past 24 years. When they returned to Nepal in 2005, they had bought the land on January 26, 2005. The plot number of the land is 344. 

Before registering the land to a fake third party’s name (Sunita Karmacharya), the land mafias had first produced a fake death certificate of Shanta Devi and then gave an application to the Kalanki office for registering the land in the name of Shanta’s husband (Tara Nidhi) on December 30, 2020. Shanta and his family knew the incident on May 27, 2022 when they visited the Kalanki-based Land Revenue Office to include their personal details in a biometric system of the land revenue office. 

In 2005, registration of biometric details of the land owners had not been in practice in Nepal. Biometric system includes taking digital photograph of the real owner and his/her finger prints for registering the land. 

In the misconduct, the CIB detained Mahabir Chand, 56, of Malikaarjun Rural Municipality-7 of Darchula district and currently residing in Tokha Municipality-8, Kathmandu. 

Chand was the person, who had himself faked as Tara Nidhi (husband of Shanta Lohani) while bringing the land into Nidhi’s name. 

Chand was arrested from Manamaiju, Kathmandu, on June 15, 2022.  Chand was also found to have a fake citizenship certificate in the name of Tara Nidhi Lohani issued from Lam

jung District Administrative Office having certificate number 4256/407.

Similarly, other arrested include Ganesh Bahadur Khanal, 41, of Sindhupalchowk, main designer of the scam Baburam Karki, 40, of Solukhumbu, Prem Prasad Khanal of Nuwakot, and Dashi Maya Shrestha alias Mamata, of Kathmandu-16, Banasthali. 

Police have also recovered some fake land documents prepared to illegally register over four bighas of land, and the illegally issued land ownership certificates in the name of Sunita Karmacharya.