Man arrested over mortgaging highway land by forging documents

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has arrested two persons for their alleged involvement in taking crores of taka bank loans by mortgaging a piece of land on a highway by forging documents.

RAB arrested Md Golam Faruq, 50, alleged mastermind of the forgery, and his associate Firoz Al Mamun, 35, from Chattogram and Tangail respectively on 14 April.

Golam Faruq is also the prime accused in an attempted murder case recently filed at Badda Police Station. He forged the documents of a piece of land belonging to another person and tried to kill the owner on 26 March and 6 April this year. A Facebook post regarding the incident went viral on social media, said the RAB sources.

In a briefing on Friday, RAB's Media Wing Director Commander Khandaker Al Moin said during primary interrogation, the accused have confessed to the attempted murder in Badda, extortion and fraudulent activities which they committed for years.

Commander Khandaker Al Moin said a private TV channel broadcasted a report on the sensational incident of taking bank loans by mortgaging the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway lands.

The bank called an auction for selling the land when Faruq could not pay the bank loan. Later, in a probe report by the land ministry also mentioned that a racket swindled crores of taka by mortgaging highway land with fake documents.

Golam Faruq, started importing cars in 2000 and opened a letter of credit in a private bank without mortgaging any property. A Bangladeshi private bank issued him Tk7 crore as demand loan against his promise of paying it back after selling the imported cars. As he could not pay the debt, the bank put pressure on him for mortgaging any immovable property belonging to him. Then Faruq made the plan to illegally register highway land in his name and mortgage it.

As per the plan, he found out the son of the original owner of Uttara-Azampur part of the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway before the then government acquired it in 1948. Faruq forged the document of the land in 2006 in the son's name.

Later, in 2010 he made another fake document that showed that his wife bought the land from the original owner's son. In the same year he forged another document that showed that his wife had transferred the property to his name.

After forging all the documents, Golam Faruq mortgaged the highway land to the bank and took another Tk15 crore loan against it.

When the bank failed to recover the loan, its officials visited the mortgaged site in 2013 and found out that the land is actually a road that belongs to the government. The entire incident of fraud came to light when they tried to hang a sign board on the piece of land, claiming that it is mortgaged to them.

Faruq is accused in eight cases over land disputes and fraudulence filed by general people, a bank and the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk).