http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes ... ty-kolkata
KOLKATA: Three days and 13 arrests later, police are finally tracking down the behind-the-scenes players in the Short Street controversy. Realtor Parag Majmudar was arrested at the airport on Wednesday afternoon for allegedly masterminding the property takeover bid, which resulted in a shooting that killed two young men.
Parag, a Kalighat-based broker known to hobnob with a section of Trinamool Congress leaders, is alleged to have floated Heartline Estates Pvt Ltd in Kolkata with the sole aim of buying the 9A Short Street property. He bought it for Rs 10 lakh, registered it in Mumbai, sold it to Sanjay Sureka for Rs 8.5 crore and was trying to wind up the firm, say police.
"He was arrested at 3.30pm at Kolkata airport with a bagful of documents. He had a boarding pass for Mumbai. We suspect he is the mastermind," said joint commissioner-crime Pallab Kanti Ghosh. The irony is that Mamata Agarwal had filed three complaints against Parag at Shakespeare Sarani police station but he wasn't even questioned. On Wednesday night, however, Parag will be brought face-to-face with Mamata for a grilling at the Lalbazar library that has been turned into an interrogation room, say sources.
Parag is the MD of Ritman Group and was the first governing council member of National Real Estate Development Council from eastern India. Police say he had planned a clean exit after raking in crores for the Short Street property but friend-turned-foe Ratnanlal Nahata proved to be a thorn in his side. Parag has told interrogators that he was tricked by Nahata — he claims Nahata took Rs 75 lakh to move out of the premises but stayed put. The duo fell out in 1999.
Heartline Estates was incorporated with the registrar of companies, Kolkata, on September 10, 1997. On June 21-22, 1999, Heartline bought the disputed 9A Short Street property for Rs 10 lakh. The title deed was registered in Mumbai after which the company approached the Company Law Board's Mumbai bench to shift its operations to Kolkata. In 2010, he sold the property to Sanjay Sureka for Rs 8.5 crore, and immediately started winding up the firm, say police. Parag signed as the confirming party in the Sureka deal and used his clout in political circles to have the title deed registered and the mutation completed, say investigators.
Heartline started with a Rs 1.05-lakh paid-up capital. Those in the know of such deals say companies like this are born for specific property deals and die once they outlive the purpose. Heartline and Parag's Ritman House share the same address: 14 Syed Amir Ali Avenue. According to the Registrar of Companies, Parag wasn't a director on the Heartline board. Deepak Badiyani, Rajesh Damani and Dilip Kumar Das were — and one of them is also a director of 17 other companies, mostly Mumbai-based, all within 2010-13.
Parag's plan didn't work according to the script because of Nahata and Mamata, say police. Unable to take control of the property, he was under tremendous pressure to return the Rs 8.5 crore to Sureka. He paid back Rs 1.8 crore and was biding his time, say police. Nahata's recent hospitalization gave him the impetus for a takeover bid, say police. But Mamata again scuppered it.
