Conmen ‘allot’ slum board flats for a sum, arrested

Chennai: Three men who allegedly posed as government officials and cheated nearly 400 economically poor people to the tune of over Rs20 lakh by issuing fake housing allotment order of the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board apartments in Ezhilnagar in southern suburb Perumbakkam were arrested by the city police on Tuesday.

According to the police, the three men identified as S. Srinivasan, 35, R. Adhinarayanan,  40,  and C. Narasimham, 39, from Mylapore had collected amounts ranging from Rs 20,000 to Rs 80,000 from their victims and given them fake allotment orders. They also used fake seals to create “allotment orders” for apartment constructed by the board at Perumbakkam.

Of the total 3,936 apartments constructed, 951 were already allotted. The board is in the process of allotting the rest to the needy people. The accused men posing as government officials started collecting money from people and began issuing fake orders.

The slum clearance board came to know about the conmen when people started reaching the huge apartment complex with the fake order to occupy. Based on a complaint from the assistant engineer the police investigated and zeroed in on the three.   People believed the conmen because they issued ‘government orders’ and paid the amount demanded by them for allocation of the nearly 3,000 unoccupied flats. A car, an auto and Rs 2.20 lakh were recovered.