JAGATSINGHPUR: Twenty-six youths, including three girls in the age group of 18-20, from West Bengal, Odisha and Chhattisgarh were rescued by Jagatsinghpur police from a three-storey building in the district headquarters town where they were held in confinement by a scammer group running a fake job racket.
Police said the youths were tricked by the racket that operated in the area and lured unemployed youths from multiple states on false promises of providing central government jobs but engaged in multi-level marketing and money circulation. Among them, two were minors.
Police on Thursday arrested five persons in this connection. The accused hailed from West Bengal and had assured the victims of jobs at Krishi Vigyan Kendra and other Central government jobs, as well as in different companies in Paradip as data entry operators.
Addressing mediapersons, Jagatsinghpur SP Ankit Kumar Verma said that the racket operating in Jagatsinghpur district has links with a kingpin from Tripura, and an investigation is underway into human trafficking, cheating, fraud, money circulation and multi-level marketing activities.
In the preliminary stage, police found that nearly 200 unemployed youths were lured, while 26 victims have, so far, been rescued. The victims’ families have also been informed for their handover, he added.
The racket came to the fore when one of the victims, Prabir Khatua, a BTech graduate, managed to contact his brother who, in turn, approached SP Verma. Khatua was brought to Jagatsinghpur on the false assurance of a job, but when he arrived, he was coerced into taking up marketing activities for the said company. He was also confined in a room in the three-storey building at Galupada under Jagatsinghpur police limits, restricted from leaving the premises without permission and not allowed to communicate with his family.
Police said each victim was made to pay Rs 20,000 for the job and told that Rs 8,000 would be spent towards maintenance charges. After collecting the money, the racket members made the job-seekers attend a training programme. After completion of the training, products like oil and stationery items worth Rs 12,000 were handed over to them for sale.
A police team led by Additional SP Satyabrata Das and SDPO Ajinkya Mane conducted a raid on Friday afternoon. During the raid, 26 youths were found confined in the building.
The racket operators are suspected to have collected Rs 40 lakh to Rs 50 lakh from nearly 200 youths lured into the scheme.
The main accused was identified as Madan Ghanei of Kunjakothi under Erasama police limits. The other accused were Purandar Bagh from Sonepur district, and Siba Kumar Bera, Rajatkanta Maity and Sasankar Karan, 25, from Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal.
Police have charged them under Sections 318(4), 336(3), 127(3), 351(2), 308(2)/3(5) of BNS.