Shocking! Pulwama man avails loan by mortgaging land he never owned

SRINAGAR — In what can be termed as a major ‘fraud’, a man from south Kashmir’s Pulwama district has availed a loan of rupees 86 lakh from a local branch of J&K Bank 17 years ago by mortgaging land he never owned.

Persons owning the land on papers from Sanzan Shahoora area of Pulwama said that they were shocked to know that the land measuring 65 Kanals belonging to them had been mortgaged by an unknown person back in the year 2004 and had availed rupees 86 lakh on producing the said land before the bank’s visiting team.

The loan amount now stands mounted to one crore and 26 lakhs after the defaulter failed to pay back the said amount in stipulated period of time.

One of the land owners, Khursheed Mir, said that a person namely Bashir Ahmad Dar son of Abdul Aziz Dar, a resident of Shal-Takuna village of Pulwama, had delinquently availed the loan from J&K Bank’s Awantipora branch in 2004 after mortgaging his land and of seven others.

The land, as per Khursheed, belongs to him and Abdul Hamid Mir, Bushan Lal Pandit, Sanjay Dhar, Sultan Magray, Mohammad Rafiq Bhat and Mohammad Ramzan Mir, all residents of Sanzan Shahoora village.

Another land owner Abdul Hamid Mir said that they came to know about this major ‘fraud’ some 10 days back after they had brought a local Patwari for exchange purpose of their land and were told that their land had been mortgaged in 2004.

He alleged that the ‘fraud’ has been done by the person in connivance with the then Patwari, Tehsildar and other concerned officers.

After all this, these owners approached the bank to know the exact details pertaining to the major irregularity and were at first denied access to such details on account of “secret deed” of the bank.

Lately, they approached the local court and they were then able to access the details about all this. The details revealed that the then Sub-Registrar at Pulwama Court authenticated the fraudulent documents of the accused and had remarked the documents as verified.

Questioning the loopholes in the then administration of Pulwama, the owners said, “How come they authenticated the land documents which never belonged to the defaulter.”

Land owners have now approached Deputy Commissioner Pulwama, who has sought a report in this regard within five days.

The land owners requested the intervention of Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, Deputy Commissioner Pulwama, SSP Pulwama, and other probing institutions to thoroughly investigate the matter and bring the culprits to book.