Police on Sunday arrested three persons, including a woman social activist, on the charge of duping job aspirants of lakhs of rupees in the Umarkote area of Nabarangpur district.
The arrestees’ were identified as Ranjana Verma, her husband Asish Kumar Patra and associate Anil Banerjee. They set up a placement agency named ‘Manabika Adhikara Committee’ and collected money from youths from different parts of the State on the guise of providing them jobs.
To win the trust of people, they used to hold awareness camps in rural areas and invite noted personalities, Government officials and local mediapersons as guests.
Later, with the help of her husband and the associate, Ranjana was collecting money from the job aspirants while giving false promises to provide them employment.
Nabarangpur SP Nitin Kusalkar said that when the duped job aspirants failed to get back their money, they lodged police complaints, following which the accused were arrested. It is suspected that hundreds of youths from Keonjhar and Nabarangpur districts were cheated by the fraudsters.