Fraudsters’ racket busted, 3 land in police dragnet

Amritsar, October 2

The Amritsar (Rural) police have busted a racket of fraudsters, who duped hundreds of people, on the pretext of providing them illegal weapons.

A majority of victims were those, who followed gangsters and criminal elements, on different social media platforms.

The Ajnala police arrested three members of the racket in this connection. They were identified as Mandeep Singh (31) of Bohalia village in Ajnala, Jatinderpal Singh, alias Samar (22), of Jassar village in Ramdass and Jasbir Singh, alias Samir (19), of Makowal village in Ramdass.

They were booked under Sections 420, 467, 468 and 471 of the IPC. They were currently on seven-day police remand for further interrogation. The police recovered Rs 60,500 in cash from their possession.

According to their modus operandi, the suspects made several fake IDs on Instagram and other social media accounts. They used to upload pictures and videos of illegal weapons on their accounts. Later, they contacted those who followed gangsters and criminal elements on social media.

“They used to tell victims that if anyone needed weapons he could contact them through social media,” said Sukhjinder Singh, SHO, Ajnala police station. The suspects used to ask victims to transfer cash into their bank accounts and later blocked them, the SHO said.

The preliminary investigation revealed that the suspects had duped hundreds of persons of lakhs of rupees. They had procured SIM cards in different names and accounts.

The SHO said the suspects were arrested from Amb Kotli village on a tip-off and produced in the court of the Ajnala Sub- Divisional Magistrate, which sent them to seven-day police remand.