Heera Babu, a prominent builder from Kerala and the Managing Director of Heera Group, was arrested by the Museum Police in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday for a cheating case. The founder and managing director of the Heera group of flats, AR Babu alias Heera Babu, was booked for allegedly duping a woman who had purchased one of the groups' flat in Althara, Thiruvananthapuram. Babu has been booked under sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 405 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code.
The police said that Babu had allegedly secured a bank loan by pledging the flat (sold to the woman) as collateral, reports The Hindu. The woman came to know she was duped only when the bank initiated proceedings for non-repayment of the loan. The police added that there are other similar cheating cases against Babu.
The New Indian Express reports that he is an accused in several cheating cases involving investors and people who buy his flats after paying huge amounts of money. Babu, on the other hand, has been reportedly bankrupt for years. Construction of several apartment buildings was halted midway, which further drove flat owners into difficulties.
On being taken to the Museum police station, Babu complained of uneasiness and has been shifted to the Peroorkada hospital and later to the Medical College. He is admitted to the hospital and is under judicial remand.
The Heera group began building flats more than two decades ago in Goa before expanding to Kerala and other states. It had won the Century International Quality Era Award in gold category in 2012. A Abdul Rasheed alias Heera Babu, a native of Nedumangad, Thiruvananthapuram, was conferred with a doctorate in construction management by the University of Honolulu in the US. He is the managing director of the company while his wife Sunitha Beegom is the director.