An employee of an organisation here was arrested and forwarded to court by Sundargarh police on Sunday night for cheating hundreds of youths of Rs8 lakh on the pretext of providing jobs. Another two accused in the case are absconding.
The duped youths on Sunday lodged an FIR that one Star Security Services on the promise of providing employment duped them of Rs 8 lakh. They told that in November last, Star Security Services had advertised for placement and in the advertisement it had been mentioned that the interested male and female candidates of Kinjrikela, Panposh, Balishankara and Sundargarh to contact office. After coming through the advertisement, about 250 youths of different villages of Sundargarh district had reached at office of Star Security situated at Bijay Talkies road. The officials of Star Security assured the youths that posts like Data Entry Operator, Security Guard and Supervisor were available and those who will get employment will get salary from Rs5,000 to Rs8,000 per month. The unemployed youths had been told by officials of Star Security Services to deposit Rs1,500 as registration fee and at later stage, it collected Rs12,000 to Rs22,000 from several youths.
The innocent youths from village gave the money to the firm by selling off paddy , rice and also mortgaging gold. They had allegedly handed over the money to one Kumar Chatria of Star Security. Even the youths had been provided money receipts. It had also been told that the head office of Star Security Service is situated at Bhubaneswar and its MD is one Rabindra Nath Pradhan and the branch manager of Sundargarh branch is Manoranjan Bhoi and assistant managing director is laxmikant Meher. After collecting the amount from youths, Meher and Bhoi allegedly had absconded. Chatria and other staffers of Sundargarh office later locked the office.
On Sunday the youths had been promised of joining in their duty but when they turned up to the office, they found it locked. Soon, they realized that they had been taken for a ride and lodged a complaint at the Town police station. They demanded immediate arrest of the culprits. later, police, after registering a cheating case, arrested Chatria and forwarded him to court. Police came to know that Meher belongs to Kalahandi district and is involved in several cheating cases.
According to sources, as per the direction of Sundargarh SP, a police team had gone to Kalahandi district to nab Meher. Police are also searching another accused Bhoi.