Court hauls up builder for cheating

MUMBAI: A metropolitan magistrate’s court on Saturday remanded builder Alpesh Ajmera and alleged Chhota Shakeel aide Bachhi Singh, to police custody till Sunday in a case of trespassing, land-grabbing, theft, extortion and cheating.

The duo was arrested by the Anti-Extortion Cell of the Mumbai crime branch on Friday, after a complaint was filed by Heena Kalbag the same day. Her husband, Chaitanya, an engineer working in Singapore, had invested his savings in buying three plots of land.

As per police records, Ajmera and Singh sold the plots to Kalbag last year for Rs1.5 crore. They constructed a building near Bhavan's College in Andheri. The police said that Chaitanya had bought a commercial plot from Ajmera in 2004, and opened a shop at the place. Two years later, when realty prices spiked, Ajmera asked Kalbag to transfer the registration of the land and return the plot to him.

Speaking to DNA, deputy commissioner of police (DCP Detection), Deven Bharti said, “Ajmera allegedly abducted Chaitanya and told his wife to give their plots back or they would kill her husband.”