NEW DELHI: A 37-year-old man was arrested by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police for duping around 300 people on the pretext of providing them jobs in Government-run Prasar Bharti. The accused, identified as Pankaj Gupta, used to receive a payment of Rs. 3000 per candidate for filling in registration or application forms and after receiving money from around 300 victims, he ran away and switched off his phone.
Accordingly, after preliminary enquiries, the police registered a case of cheating and criminal conspiracy and began probing the matter. During the investigation copy of screenshots of emails purportedly received from Prasar Bharati by accused Pankaj Gupta and sent to complainants regarding vacancies were seized by the police.
“Reply from Prasar Bharati office was also obtained in which an official denied the publication of any vacancies as mentioned in the emails,” DCP (EOW) MI Haider said. He said that during the probe it has also come on record that the copy of emails purportedly made in the name of Prasar Bharati was fake.
“Investigation revealed that the accused and his father was a supplier of books in Prasar Bharati Secretariate hence he knew the working of Prasar Bharati and therefore he used the name, logo and emails/name of Prasar Bharati to gain the victim’s trust,” the official said.
The bank details of the accused Pankaj Gupta were obtained and scrutinized and the same was found corroborated with the transfer of payments through payment gateways like Paytm, Google Pay, Phone Pay etc. His location was traced and he was arrested on April 19.