Bhubaneswar: Nayapalli police Thursday arrested two cheats for allegedly duping passport applicants by impersonating Passport Seva officials here. Nayapalli IIC Satyaranjan Pradhan said the accused were identified as Santosh Kumar Swain, 34 and Tikuna Subudhi, 32, both locals. The fraud came to the fore after Jyotiprabha Jena and Suresh Chandra Panda complained about the fraud. In the complaint, Pradhan said, Jyotiprabha alleged that Tikuna Subudhi lured him with the promise of issuing a passport and extracted Rs 8,500.
Later, Tikuna ignored him and refused to return the money he had taken for the purpose. Similarly, complainant Suresh lodged an FIR claiming that Santosh cheated him of Rs 3,500 on the pretext of issuing a passport for his wife. “Further investigation is underway to ascertain whether the duo has duped more people in similar manner,” said Pradhan. Taking advantage of public inconvenience due to technical snags plaguing the passport office, brokers are duping the gullible passport applicants, it was learnt.
DEBADURLLAV HARICHANDAN, OP
