AP: 12 held for forging land documents

Police today claimed to have busted a racket allegedly involved in creating fake pattadar passbooks (a land document) and arrested twelve persons.
The alleged forgery, which involves manipulating the entries of land, ownership titles and details of land valuation, runs into over Rs one crore, a senior police officer said.
"Twelve gang members were arrested and more than 17,000 fake pattadar passbooks were recovered from them," SP Rajasekhara Babu told reporters here.
Police seized cash worth Rs 1 lakh, a printer, rubber stamps of various revenue officers, a four-wheeler and a sickle from the accused who were picked up from various places in the district.

Police suspect the accused were the part of a bigger syndicate also comprising Village Revenue Officers (VROs).
The SP said the accused could have obtained loans from banks through the forged passbooks or even grabbed plots of land.
Pattadar passbook is a document in the form of a small bound book containing all details of land owned by a person (pattadar) and is issued by Revenue officials.
The members of the gang, who are operating from the district headquarters, are widely distributed in rural areas, including Battalapalli and Dharmavaram, he further said.