The gory reality of old city today is that land disputes are no more settled in courts, but through cold-murders, kidnappings or other such heinous acts of violence. Gone are the days when political differences and community factor used to be the main reasons for disputes. Now the people, particularly of the old city, have only property disputes among themselves. Real estate observers in the city note how property related crimes in Hyderabad have almost become the order of the day. With land prices across the twin cities shooting through the roof over the last one decade and scores of 'unwarranted' investors entering the market, they claim that the property game has indeed become a dirty one.

One such incident is the fallout between two rival groups of old city witnessed recently that left one dead and three others (Chandrayangutta MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi and two members from Pehelwan's family) critically injured. It is everybody's knowledge that apart from political differences, it was a long drawn land dispute that led the groups resort to violence. This gory reality of real estate business hasn't sprang up suddenly, but is actually rooted in the Nizam's era when vast stretches of land were owned by the royal family and their friends and relatives. "Once the Nizam's rule ended, many of these land ran into title tussles with more than one heir from the royal family claiming right over them. There were third parties too who rushed in to pick up properties whose original owners had fled the city by then," say the old timers.

Then came the urban land ceiling (ULC) into force, leading to more confusion. With the government making no sincere effort to clearly demarcate the ULC land from the privately-owned land, it only opened up more avenues for land 'mafias' to use illegal means of grabbing these properties. In the Old City for instance, most of the land that now houses modern buildings, are under dispute due to the widespread presence of land grabbers. This has also resulted in financial institutions shying away from doing business with developers in that area. Observers say that the recent attack on the legislator in broad daylight isn't likely to end there, but may lead into a gang war.