Dehradun police have arrested five persons, including a woman, from Noida (Uttar Pradesh) on Thursday on the charge of duping a number of people from Dehradun and other cities of the country on the pretext of arranging package tours.
The accused have been identified as Karnal, Haryana, native lavpreet; Ghaziabad natives Anil Kumar Sagar, Manish Kumar Mishra, Sunil Kumar and Asha (changed name), said Dehradun superintendent of police (city) Ajay Singh.
The woman was handed over to her family after she was served notice under section 41 of CrPC.
In course of interrogation the accused are learnt to have confessed their crime and it was revealed that they used to dupe hundreds of people every month to cheat them of about Rs 10 lakh in a month in Dehradun and other towns.
The accused had also developed a website which was being operated along with a call centre which was also functioning. According to the police, the people were duped by them after they booking all-India travel tour package through the website which would display various attractive travel packages being offered to potential ‘customers’. Sagar Chandna, resident of Premnagar has registered a complaint on December 21 in which he had stated that he had registered a travel package for Goa, making the booking on a website for four persons on November 29. He had deposited Rs 16, 000 for this holiday package in the bank account as directed by the agency official.
It was later tha he came to realise that he had been duped of the entire amount by the persons posing as agency officials. Acting on his complaint, the police booked a case under 406/420/120b of the Indian Penal Code against unidentified persons in Premnagar police station. A team from local police station and police special operation group personnel were pressed into to crack the case. Team members conducted thorough investigation and based on their findings, they conducted raids at the travel agency in Noida and arrested the accused. Police also recovered 22 computers and related equipment, five mobile phones and various documents from the possession of the accused.