In a landmark judgment that brings to close nearly two decades of legal wrangling, a Srinagar court has convicted two local men for defrauding a foreign national of ₹34 lakh in a long-concealed property scam that dates back to 2008.
The City Judge Srinagar, Abdul Bari, pronounced the verdict on Friday, holding Mukhtar Ahmad Guroo and his brother Nazir Ahmad Guroo—both residents of Abi Karpora, Nehru Park, Dalgate—guilty of criminally deceiving the woman into believing she could lawfully co-own property in Jammu and Kashmir, despite legal prohibitions on foreign nationals owning immovable assets in the region.
The complainant, a foreign national who had arrived in India in the early 1990s and was residing in Goa, first encountered Mukhtar in 2005. What began as a friendship soon evolved into a relationship marked by emotional and financial entanglement. Trusting Mukhtar, she invested ₹34 lakh in what she was led to believe was a joint purchase of a house and land in Srinagar’s Gulab Bagh area.
Unbeknownst to her, Mukhtar registered the property solely in his own name, deliberately withholding the legal reality that barred foreign nationals from acquiring property rights in Jammu and Kashmir under prevailing law.
For a while, she lived in the Gulab Bagh house with Mukhtar, convinced that she had secured a co-ownership stake. It was only later—when attempts to assert her ownership failed—that the full extent of the deceit unraveled. Feeling betrayed, she approached the Crime Branch of Kashmir, which registered an FIR in June 2010. A formal chargesheet was filed two months later, documenting a clear case of intentional fraud.
In a scathing judgment, the court labeled the deception a “calculated betrayal of trust,” executed with the sole aim of exploiting the woman’s emotional vulnerability and ignorance of regional property laws. The ruling underscores how personal relationships were weaponized to commit white-collar crime.
Judge Bari sentenced Mukhtar Ahmad Guroo to two years of simple imprisonment and a fine of ₹5,000 under Section 420 of the Ranbir Penal Code (RPC) for cheating. His brother Nazir Ahmad Guroo, found guilty of abetment under Sections 109 read with 420 RPC, received an identical sentence. Both were warned that failure to pay the fine would invite an additional six-month imprisonment, though the sentences will run concurrently.
The prosecution was led by Additional Public Prosecutor Vikas Kumar, who described the conviction as “a triumph of truth, delayed but ultimately delivered.”