Man duped of Rs 15 lakh, two booked

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 14

The police have booked two persons for allegedly duping a local resident of Rs 15 lakh on the pretext of settling their bank loans. The accused were identified as Gurwinderbir Singh Sodhi of Ajit Nagar and Nutan Chopra.

Manjinderpal Singh, a resident of Park Avenue here, had lodged a complaint with the police on Thursday. Following the initial probe, the police have booked the duo under Sections 420, 406, 465, 466, 468, 471 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, though no arrest had been made so far.

The victim told the police that his relative, Tejinder Kaur and Prabhjot Singh of Jujhar Avenue, had taken a loan of Rs 40 lakh from the Central Bank of India for running their publication house and as housing loan. He said as they could not repay the same, their loans were declared as a non-performing assets (NPA) by the bank authorities.

He said Sodhi was known to him and used to claim to have links with senior bank authorities. He used to work for settling the bank accounts which were declared NPA by the banks. He said they talked to him about their case and he assured to get the loan settled under the one-time settlement scheme.

He said a few days later, he handed over a letter to him and said their loan would be settled by paying Rs 15 lakh under the one-time settlement scheme. He took the amount on different occasions. They transferred the amount through net banking. He alleged a few days later, when they did not get a no due certificate from the bank, they tried to approach him but he did not respond to the calls. Later, he called from another mobile number and said the certificate would reach them through a courier. However, they didn’t get it and the courier tracker number was also found to be fake. He said when they went to his house. Sensing that they were cheated by the accused, a complaint was lodged with the police. Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Abhimanyu Rana said further probe was underway and efforts were on to nab the suspects.

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