Berhampur: Baidyanathpur police here arrested the proprietor of a fake consultancy agency on a charge of defrauding over Rs 25 lakh from 800 youths in Ganjam and Gajapati districts on the promise of giving them jobs in various posts for mobile phone towers, Tuesday.
The accused was identified as Basant Mallick, the proprietor of Maxis Outsourcing Pvt Ltd at Golapalli Sahi of Berhampur.
A case was registered and the accused produced in the court, IIC Sarada Prasanna Das said. The matter came to the fore after a victim Anuj Kumar Rath lodged a complaint at Baidyanatahpur police station.
He alleged that Mallick and his wife Kumudini Mallick assured him of a job in a mobile phone tower and took Rs 2, 500 as advance from him. His wife is yet to be arrested. Later, Rath was given an appointment letter and asked to work as a supervisor in a mobile phone tower in Gajapati.
There he was asked to identify unemployed youths and collect details for their employment in mobile phone towers on a monthly salary of Rs 10,000.
There, he allegedly collected Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,000 each from the youths looking for jobs. However, none of them was given employment even after two months. This raised suspicion of Rath.
He then enquired the owner couple in the regard. However, the couple failed to give any convincing reply and went incommunicado by switching of their mobile phones.
PNN
