Kin of 4 booked in gold kitty fraud case in Jalandhar allege conspiracy

Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, July 31

As the police teams, investigating the alleged gold kitty scam, have lodged FIRs against the four managerial staff employees of OLS Whizz company, their kin on Friday said that they had been wrongly booked by the police.

The family members of Puneet Verma, Sheela Singh, Aditya Sethi and Aashish Sharma, who were booked by the police, said instead of trying to recover Rs 25 crore from the company directors – Ranjit Singh and Gagandeep Singh (already arrested) and Gurminder Singh (still absconding), the police were trying to harass them for no fault of theirs.

Ashish Sharma’s father, Subhash Sharma, said, “My son had been working with the company on a commission basis for the last two and a half years. His job was like an LIC insurance agent. He deposited the investors’ money in the company’s account through bank and did not usurp anything for himself. Had he done anything of the sort, the company directors would have got lodged an FIR against him. Unlike the company directors who splurged and used all luxuries, we have been living in a simple house in Hoshiarpur which has not even been whitewashed for years now. My son had been mentally upset for the last few weeks. He has two daughters — one is 4 years old and the other is one and a half years old. I retired from a government job which is not even pensionable. I really wonder what the police were expecting from us.”

Puneet Verma’s father JP Verma residing at Shiv Nagar here said, “Started in 2015, the company sold products through a chain system. My son became a distributor and began selling items like LEDs, CCTVs and other electronic gadgets that it launched through instalments. Whatever my son earned was on the basis of commission. The directors are the ones who have withdrawn the entire amount from the accounts, had been handling the company website and had attempted to remove all account details of the investors to fudge the records. My son was just a distributor and he was being falsely implicated in the case.”

Balwinder Kumar, general secretary of the BSP, said, “It is unfair on the part of the police to suppress all low-rank employees while sparing the company bigwigs. How can the company directors, arrested in the case, say that they suffered losses when they had bought a new residential plot for Rs 30 lakh and started construction to raise a plush house. How come Gagandeep bought a Jaguar car for Rs 50-60 lakh and Ranjit owned a Fortuner worth Rs 40 lakh. They had a conspiracy in mind before absconding on July 14 as Ranjit sold his Fortuner to a Hoshiarpur-based person through a Jalandhar-based car sale-purchase agent just a day before. He sold it for Rs 29 lakh, getting Rs 19 lakh in account and Rs 10 lakh as cash. Have the cops, who arrested him, recovered Rs 10 lakh? Have they sealed his house in Shiv Vihar locality after the filing of an FIR? Ranjit issued post dated cheques to some investors before absconding as they had started raising hue and cry. Did the police not find it mala fide? The whole idea of the police in booking the low-rank managers is to divert attention from the main accused.”

OLS Whizz Pvt Ltd has sister concerns

• OLS Whizz Pvt Ltd also has sister concerns Whizz Power and Whizz Mart. Whizz Power also had ISO:2005 registration. Whizz Mart, like OLS Whizz, is a private limited company registered with the Registrars of Company. While OLS Whizz has Ranjit Singh and his brother-in-law Gagandeep Singh as directors, the Whizz Mart listed on the same address has a host of other directors in addition to Ranjit (MD) and Gagandeep. The other directors include Gurminder Singh, Puneet Verma, Sheela Devi, Aditya Sethi and Ashish Sharma as additional director.
• As per the ROC records, Whizz Mart got registered in April 2018. It has a paid-up capital and authorised share capital of Rs 10 lakh each. There is no record of the last AGM or balance sheet of the Whizz Mart company on the ROC portal. The companies even sent employees, big investors and agents for international promotion to Thailand, Dubai, etc, in the last few years.