By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 29 Sep: STF has finally paced up its action in the Pushpanjali Infra fraud case and today it managed to arrest one of the main accused, Rajpal Walia, who carried a reward of Rs 25,000 over his head. He was arrested from Nainital by the police. Rajpal Walia and Deepak Mittal are the chief accused in the case, which has been regularly reported by Garhwal Post. The investigation in the case picked up only recently after Ajai Singh took over as SSP, Dehradun. Though the Doon Police have got 41 bank accounts related to Deepak Mittal, his wife Rakhi Mittal and Rajpal Walia, these accounts have no money credited against them since almost the entire funds have already been withdrawn by the fraudsters during the period when the Police hardly showed any serious interest to investigate the case and catch the culprits. Though Walia and his wife Shefali Walia have been arrested and the bank accounts frozen, it remains to be seen how much relief that will provide to the investors in Orchid Park project who have been cheated. They were continuously absconding in the fraud case, for which SSP Ajay Singh had also announced a reward, after which today Rajpal Walia has been arrested from Nainital.
Crores of rupees were collected from people in the name of housing but till date they have not been able to get the homes due to which people had become victims of fraud. Yesterday, SOG had taken action to arrest Deepak Mittal’s father Ashwani Mittal and send him to jail.
Two days before, Shefali Walia, wife of Rajpal Walia, who had recently declared “divorce” from Rajpal, was arrested while Deepak Mittal’s father Ashwani Mittal has also been arrested. Deepak Mittal and his wife Rakhi Mittal are still at large and are stated to be living in Dubai. Rajpal Walia had allegedly arrived secretly in Nainital to secure bail for his “divorced” wife Shefali Walia and was trying to contact some lawyers in Nainital when he was nabbed by the Police.
Deepak Mittal and Rajpal Walia are considered to be the main architects of the Pushpanjali Projects fraud. Rajpal Walia had been hiding from the police and other agencies for quite some time. The case is being investigated by the STF under the direction of SSP, STF, Ayush Aggarwal.
Aggarwal stated that in the case of cheating many people of crores of rupees in the name of investing in flats under Orchid Park Project in Dehradun district, a case was registered against Deepak Mittal, Rakhi Mittal and Rajpal Walia and others at Dalanwala police station. Many cases have been registered. In these cases, a lot of efforts were being made by the district police as well as other agencies to arrest the Mittals as well as Rajpal Walia, the director of Pushpanjali Project, but Rajpal Walia kept changing his locations continuously and was not using any mobile phone.
Speaking to Garhwal Post, some investors in the Orchid Park project had claimed that Walia had been indulging in other property deals in name of his relatives and the Police knew this all along but had not taken any action for a long time to arrest him. Meanwhile, while speaking to this correspondent some months ago, Walia had sought to lay the entire blame of the fraud on the Mittals. However, once Ajai Singh took over as SSP Doon, some pending investigations against property frauds gathered real pace and the arrest of Walia is a clear pointer to this.
A concrete strategy was prepared by SSP STF to arrest this vicious criminal. Under this strategy, the Senior Superintendent of Police STF had kept its STF team on alert to keep a vigilant eye on all the possible places of visit of Rajpal Walia and to monitor the activities of his close relatives, along with the information about this rewarded criminal. On the night of 28 September, STF received information that Rajpal Walia had come to Nainital regarding the bail of his wife Shefali Walia. He was grabbed by the STF team in Nainital. It is also pertinent to point out here that the police investigation in this case also gathered pace after Enforcement Directorate had also registered cases against Mittals and Walia.
According to the sources, during interrogation, Rajpal Walia informed the STF team that he avoided making calls to any of his relatives to avoid his arrest. He would often use others phone to contact family and also changed his location every other day and was living in UP, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh to avoid arrest.
Half a dozen cases of fraud are registered against the accused Rajpal Walia, son of Late Chuttan Lal, resident of B-48 Race Course Police Station, Dalanwala, Dehradun. The STF team that arrested Walia included Inspector Yashpal Singh Bisht, Sub Inspector Vipin Bahuguna, Sub Inspector Narottam Bisht, Additional Sub Inspector Devendra Bharti, Head Constable Pramod Kumar, Constables Ravi Pant, Kader Khan, Deepak Chandola, STF team of Kumaon.
