New Delhi, Jan 25 (PTI) The Delhi Police has arrested a key accused in connection with a cheating case where a second-hand car was sold to a retired army official by allegedly forging paperwork, an official said on Sunday.
The case pertains to a complaint by an ex-serviceman who, after retirement, was running a business of buying and selling used cars.
In February 2023, he was allegedly cheated by a group who sold him an SUV using forged documents, concealing the fact that a bank loan on the vehicle was pending, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) Ankit Singh said.
The officer said the accused posed as relatives of the car owner and produced fabricated ownership and loan clearance papers.
Trusting the documents, the complainant purchased the vehicle and later sold it to a buyer in Punjab. Months later, it emerged that the car was bank-financed and the loan had not been cleared, leading to criminal proceedings against the complainant and his father.
Both were arrested by Punjab Police in September 2024 and spent nearly 70 days in jail before settling the dispute by paying the vehicle’s cost and other expenses.
“Moved by the plight of the ex-serviceman, the police post at Dwarka Sector 10 reopened the trail. Fresh investigation revealed that the vehicle had been sold by misusing a forged Aadhaar card and a fake identity of the original owner,” DCP Singh said.
The accused had allegedly prepared a doctored no-objection certificates from the bank and manipulated online records to make it appear that the loan had been cleared before selling the vehicle.
During sustained surveillance and multiple raids across Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, police tracked the accused, who frequently changed locations to evade arrest, the official said.
On January 4, following intelligence inputs, a team conducted a raid at a farm in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit district and apprehended an accused identified as Hardeep Singh Randhawa, he said.
Police said Randhawa has several previous criminal involvements across Uttar Pradesh and Punjab and was absconding for three years in connection with an earlier case.
During interrogation, Randhawa allegedly disclosed that his cousin and associate Satendra Pal Singh had impersonated him and approached the victim to sell the SUV. Satendra also played a key role in arranging forged documents and facilitating the sale, police said.
Satendra is currently absconding and also has multiple criminal cases, including attempt to murder and cheating, registered against him in Uttar Pradesh.
Police have obtained custodial remand of Randhawa and intensified efforts to arrest the absconding co-accused, they said, adding that further investigation is underway to identify other links in the vehicle forgery and fraud network. PTI BM BM ARB ARB
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