Kerala: Missing lady realtor raises questions

Alappuzha: The Cherthala police has started a probe to trace a wealthy woman  belonging to Kadakkarapilly near Cherthala  who has been missing for the last three-and-a-half years.  Bindhu, 44,  is said to have had real estate dealings in Cherthala and Ernakulam,  and her brother P. Praveen Kumar  has alleged that the real estate mafia killed her after acquiring her properties through forged documents. A Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been constituted under Cherthala DySP  A.G. Lal  to  probe the case after  Praveen Kumar , who is settled in Italy,  filed a complaint with the police and home department the other day about his missing sister.

While Praveen was in Italy, Bindhu of Padmanivas, Alumkal junction, Kadakarapally,  went to Mumbai to pursue nursing course. She visited her home  occasionally.   Her mother died on September 8, 2002 and  father on November 29 the same year. However, Bindhu did not attend the  funeral rites.  A week prior to it, she   had visited her home and sold a few assets and taken  away more than 100 sovereigns of gold which were kept in a bank locker.

After the death of her parents, Bindhu, who was not married,  started staying alone  at home.   Bindhu sold ancestral properties  worth crores of rupees that she had received from her parents, said the complaint. She had told her relatives that she was running a  real estate business along with a broker at Pallipuram. Two years ago, Praveen had tried to contact her, but nobody, including  the real estate broker,  gave him any information about her.    

Meanwhile, Praveen collected the details of the land dealings she carried out at Edapally sub -registrar office, Ernakulam,  in 2013.  For the preparation of the land documents, a driving licence and power of attorney of Bindhu were  produced in the registrar office, but all the documents were bogus, said the complaint.    Praveen collected hese documents through the Right to Information ct.  

The complaint said that she had owned land in many parts of Cherthala and Ernakulam.  “So the real estate brokers must have killed her after forging the  documents,” he alleged.  The DySP said that the  local police had conducted a preliminary investigation and found something fishy in the incident. “We have constituted a special investigation team which will question real estate brokers in the coming days,” he said.