A 34-year-old man was arrested here Thursday for allegedly duping personal assistants of more than 30 MLAs and several unemployed youth in the guise of providing job opportunities under ‘Rajiv Yuva Kiranalu’ scheme while collecting money from them.
According to police, Thota Balaji Naidu, a native of Kirlampudi in East Godavari district, had collected at least Rs 3.5 lakh cash from victims in the name of registration and application fee.
Additional deputy commissioner of police M Venkateswar Rao said they received a complaint from one S Ram Jagadish, who stated that Naidu had duped him in the name of providing job.
“On a tip off, we arrested Naidu at Barkatpura. He confessed to having committed the offence. We seized Rs 56,000 from him,” he added.
Naidu, a B.Tech graduate from Kakinada JNTU, had joined as a junior engineer in 2003 with NTPC and worked in Ramagundem, Palvancha and Visakapatnam. While at Visakapatnam, he was arrested by ACB officials 2008 for accepting an amount of Rs 25,000 as bribe from Anand, Tanuku MLA YT Raju’s PA.
After the incident, he was dismissed from NTPC in Jan 2009.
“After his release from Visakapatnam jail, the accused started calling PAs of different MLAs and assured them of arranging outsourcing jobs at NTPC. He directed them to transfer the amounts into his friend’s bank account,” police said.
There have been criminal cases lodged against Naidu at Vizianagaram town police station, where he was arrested in April 2009 and remanded. He was then released from jail in September 2010. Shortly thereafter, he was again apprehended by the Yadagirigutta police in connection with committing similar cheating offences.
Habituated to a lavish lifestyle, the accused went back to cheating persons and collected Rs 1.50 lakh from them. He was again arrested by the Narasapuram police in 2011.
“When he was in Rajamundry jail, he befriended one Satyanarayana, who hails from Rajahmundry. After his release, Naidu once again began his cheating business and collected an amount of Rs 3.50 lakh from unsuspecting persons. He told Satyanarayana to give his bank account number since he receives amounts from different persons. Naidu then contacted several persons and advised them to deposit an amount of `1,060 and Rs 500 towards application charges and an amount of Rs 560 towards mess charges for the first month from each victim. The unemployed persons remitted amounts in the bank account, which totalled up to Rs 3.50 lakh,” the police said.