The Commissionerate Police on Thursday arrested a hotelier here for duping a person of over Rs 10 crore.
Acting on a complaint, the police arrested Chittaranjan Mallick, owner of Hotel Suryansh, from his Nayapalli residence. Mallick is accused of cheating a person of over Rs 10 crore in sponge iron business.
Earlier, his brother Niranjan Mallick had been arrested in connection with this case.
Niranjan Mallick had reportedly taken Rs 9.75 crore as advance from Keonjhar-based Priti Pragyan Minerals Pvt ltd MD Babish Prusty to sell his sponge iron company named Aditya Sponge and Power Private limited located at Keonjhar as per an agreement signed between the parties in 2008. The agreement had put the total cost of the unit at Rs 29 crore.
But later, Prusty found that the ownership of the plant was not with Niranjan Mallick as the latter had fraudulently made one of his employees, Niranjan Pradhan, the managing director of the company and had struck a deal to sell his sponge iron unit.
However, Niranjan neither handed over the unit nor returned the money he had taken from Prusty as advance.
After failing to recover his advance money despite repeated calls to Niranjan, Prusty lodged a complaint in October 2013, following which the Nayapalli police had arrested him in August last year.
Twin City Commissioner of Police RP Sharma said Chittaranjan Mallick is also implicated in a case of cheating of Rs 35 lakh in West Bengal.