Ludhiana police busts fake surety racket

The accused allegedly forged property documents to get more than 50 undertrials out in bail. Rakesh Agrawal, Ludhiana Police Commissioner, said the gang would reach out to advocates offering to get surety for their clients for a fee.

The city police on Wednesday claimed to have busted a fake surety racket with the arrest of four persons. The accused allegedly forged property documents to get more than 50 undertrials out in bail.

Rakesh Agrawal, Ludhiana Police Commissioner, said the gang would reach out to advocates offering to get surety for their clients for a fee. "To do this, they would identify property documents which are available online and do not have any loan against them. They woulld then create a fake Aadhaar card in the name of that property owner to secure the bail. They would also forge fake property documents and ID cards," he said.

The gang would then submit these forged documents before the court when an accused needed surety. "They charged anywhere between Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 depending on the case," Sameer Verma, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, said. The accused were identified as Harpal Singh, Rahul Kumar, Navdeep Singh and Harwinder Singh.

The racket came to light when police observed that there was a rise in the number of accused jumping bail. Subsequent warrants issued against them had the wrong address. The matter was brought to the notice of Police Commissioner Rakesh Agrawal, who directed the local police to probe the matter. During the course of their investigation, the police realised that the scam was more widespread than initially thought. All the four accused were produced before a court and remand has been taken for deeper probe. "We are yet to determine if more people are involved in this racket," said a senior police officer.