Kochi: The police probing the forgery of documents for the conversion of wetland into dry land at Choornikkara suspects the involvement of more people in it.
It has emerged that Arun, 34, an office attendant with the Land Revenue Commissionerate, helped Abootty aka Abu, the prime accused, to forge the documents.
The police on Saturday arrested the Karamana, Thiruvananthapuram, native following the arrest of Abu, who is his relative, on Friday. Meanwhile, the police detained two of Abu's relatives for arranging hideout for him.
The investigation revealed that Abu had allegedly given the forged documents to Arun to make it an official order by stamping it with concerned seals from the Land Revenue Commissionerate.
Arun took it inside the Commissionerate and stamped the fake order with the office seal of Land Revenue Commissioner and the name seal of a senior superintendent without their knowledge.
Sources said that Abu's initial attempts to get the papers at the lower levels of the revenue department were failed and then planned to get it done through the Land Revenue Commissionerate. Hence he approached Arun and also paid an amount of Rs.30, 000 as a bribe for doing this.
Abu had initially approached the Land Revenue Commissioner directly and applied to get a clean chit for the conversion of the documents. But there was no response from the Commissionerate. Following this, he forged an order at a computer centre in the state capital and handed it over to Arun who got them sealed.
Abu then handed over the order to Choornikkara village office and a copy of the order to Taluk Office. He then forged an order of the revenue divisional officer (RDO) at a computer centre at Paravur by affixing it with a digital signature of the officer cut out from an old order and submitted it to the Choornikkara village officer.
However, the village officer grew suspicious of the order which led to the registration of a case.
A police team led by K.A. Vidyadharan, deputy superintendent, Aluva, seized the documents and interrogated officials concerned. Another team led by Aluva East inspector N.S. Salish and sub-inspector P.K. Mohith picked up Abu from a house at Ezhattumugham on May 9.
They will seek the custody of both for interrogation.
