BHUBANESWAR: The Economic Offences Wing of the Crime Branch has arrested a job racketeer who had duped hundreds of youths by opening a fake recruitment racket. Biswapratap Samal, the accused, had cheated crores of rupees from job aspirants in the process.
Samal had set up a network through which he had lured youths seeking jobs. He conducted recruitment, handed out appointment letters and even provided fake jobs by paying measly salaries to make it look real.
The EOW received complaints from one Saktikanta Mishra who had paid `1.20 lakh in September for a job as an engineer with Sterlite of which Samal posed as the project manager. He had a formal office too.
Samal issued appointment letter to Mishra. For about two to three months, he was paid a salary and asked to do odd jobs which were not related to his post after which he stopped making any payment.
An official spokesperson of EOW said a verification by Mishra revealed that Samal had no link with Sterlite and that the latter was only cheating youths by issuing fake jobs. In several cases, he had sent the victims to conduct survey in Anganwadis and other such places saying those were part of the preliminary work.
After a case was lodged, the EOW conducted a raid on Samal's Metro Satellite City house where the cops found dozens of fake appointment letters and even ID cards. The hard disk of his computer was also seized.
The EOW produced Samal before a local court and took two days custody to dig deep into his fraud. Samal has been booked under Sections 420/467/468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code.