Police on Saturday arrested a city-based realtor for allegedly duping customers to the tune of Rs20 lakh.
The Commissionerate police arrested Satyabrata Dhir, Director of Trishna Real Estate (P) ltd, from his IRC Village residence here on the charge of cheating customers.
A complainant said, “I had booked a property in a housing project in Kantabada in the city for which I have paid Rs8 lakh in phases. They were supposed to hand over the property in June 2014. But they stopped the construction work. I visited the site and their office several times and they didn’t respond to my queries. I even asked them to refund my money. When they didn’t lend an ear, I took the shelter of law. I have all the documents with me.”
Notably, as many as seven warrants had been issued against the real estate firm by several police stations in Baleswar and Bhubaneswar.
“Several customers are cancelling their bookings. The real estate market is at low now. It has become difficult to sell a property. In this scenario, how can we refund the entire amount to themIJ Till now, we have refunded around Rs 10 crore to the customers,” a staff of the real estate firm said.
It may be recalled that Dhir was quizzed by the CBI in 2014 for his alleged links with the Artha Tatwa (AT) Group, a major player in the multi-crore chit fund scam. The CBI had also raided his house here in the city on August 16, 2014.
Dhir, who is also a director of the Sparsh Hospitals & Critical Care Private limited, was also interrogated by the Commissionerate police for his AT Group links.
Dhir’s name was among the 22 people named by AT Group chief Pradeep Kumar Sethy those who had financially benefitted from him. He had appeared before the Kharavel Nagar police on June 5, 2013 and had claimed that the AT Group chief owes him money contrary to Sethi’s statement to police that he diverted crores of rupees into real estate and other businesses.