Three held for duping people

NEW DELHI - Three youths who set up a fake agency to provide domestic helps and cheated many people, including a senior IAS officer, have been held, police said Monday.

Lokesh, 23, Shashi Kant, 20 and Shekhar, 19, all resident of Burari in north Delhi, were held on Saturday night from their residence, said a senior police officer.

They were held following a complaint filed by Vandana Kini, director in National Security Council and resident of Hudco Place in New Delhi.

She said in her complaint that after reading an advertisement in newspapers by the Siddharth Group Maid Bureau she had called up for a maid servant.

Posing as Deepak Kumar, one of the accused told her that he can provide a maid from Jharkhand and would charge Rs.13,000 as his commission, and would replace the maid at any time if she is unsuitable, said the officer.

The accused came with a maid, Sunita, at her residence and said that she will work for a year. Thereafter, he took Rs.14,200 - Rs.13,000 as commission and Rs.1,200 as the salary of the girl. The maid left her house within a few hours without informing, and the accused switched off his mobile phone, said the officer.

During interrogation, they told police that after suffering huge losses in their respective business, they opened a fake placement agency and started providing maid servants brought from Jharkand and Bihar area.

They told police that they work with Annu and Abhimanyu, both hailing from Gumla in Jharkhand. They used to put advertisements in leading newspapers in this regard and used to give names of fake companies, and the mobile numbers given in these advertisements were obtained on fake identities, said the officer.

Absconding accused Annu has previously been arrested in a rape case in Gumla. We are still investigating the case and looking for the absconders, said the officer.