Engineer held on cheating charge

A young engineering graduate who allegedly cheated people by posing as a travel agent working for reputed airline companies has been arrested in Karol Bagh here.

The police recently received a complaint from Ashish Kalra of the Delhi Institute of Gemology alleging that he was cheated of Rs.41,000 through fraudulent withdrawal from his bank account. Mr. Kalra said one Kranta Akash visited his showroom and introduced himself as a senior marketing official of an airline company. He offered a discount of 23 per cent on air tickets.

The officer also showed his identity cards and the air-tickets purportedly purchased from various customers. Convinced that it was a genuine offer, Mr. Kalra handed over a cheque for Rs.1,000 to the “airline representative” for membership to avail of the discounted ticket price. Two days later, he was shocked to discover that Rs.41,000 had been withdrawn from his bank account using the same cheque leaf.

Investigations revealed that the same person had cheated several people in Connaught Place, Kamla Market and other places.

Acting on a tip-off that the suspect had been spotted near Tis Hazari court complex, the police laid a trap and arrested him on Saturday. He was identified as Prakash Kumar (24), a resident of Pandav Nagar. During interrogation, he purportedly disclosed that he had cheated an engineer on April 25 using the same modus operandi. A month later, he targeted Moninder Singh, a resident of Agra in Uttar Pradesh. “Three cases of cheating were found registered against him at different police stations in Delhi,” said Additional Commissioner of Police Devesh Chandra Srivastava.

The police have collected and are analysing the closed-circuit television camera footages of all the banks from where Prakash had allegedly withdrawn money from the victims’ bank accounts. “He would tamper with the amount mentioned on the cheque and had withdrawn Rs.41,000 in all the three cases. Prakash is a technology graduate from an engineering college in Punjab. He has done his schooling from Patna in Bihar and belongs to an affluent family. His father is a successful businessman and owns export and construction companies. He is the only son of his parents and entered the world of crime to lead a lavish life,”said Mr. Srivastava.