12 booked for duping Sirhind farmer of Rs 23.50 lakh

Our Correspondent

Fatehgarh Sahib, June 27

The police have booked 12 persons on a charge of duping a farmer of Sirhind town of Rs 23.50 lakh on the pretext of providing him a lottery prize, Rs 25 lakh and a BMW car.

In a complaint lodged with the Senior Superitendent of Police (SSP) of Fatehgarh Sahib, Kuljeet Singh Bassi, a resident of Dalichi Mohalla in Sirhind town, alleged that on May 18, he got a call that he had won Rs25 lakh and a BMW car in a lottery. The caller asked him to deposit some money in a bank account. After some days he started getting regular calls from numbers 89683-51234, 75892-38549 and + 92-3064531308, and he continued depositing money in account numbers of the State Bank of India as per the demand of the callers. He deposited a total of Rs23.50 lakh.

Whenever he tried to make some queries, the caller couldn’t give him satisfactory answers. He got suspicious and lodged a complaint with the SSP.

The SSP said the phone number 89683-51234 was in the name of Massa Singh, a farmer. He had given it to workers, who transplanted paddy in his fields. The other number 75892-38549 was in the name of Roop Lal, who repairs cycles. His SIM card got damaged and he had thrown it away. Both Massa Singh and Roop Lal did not get their mobile numbers blocked and those were misused by the suspects.

The number + 92-3064531308 was found to be from Pakistan.

Sub-Inspector Jagtar Singh, investigating officer, said a case had been registered against Sudhir Bahuhiya of Ludhiana, Rama Kumar Mishra of Hooghly (West Bengal), Prem Raj of Patna, Ashok Kumar Singh of Manjahgarh, Rohit Kumar and Chhotu Lal of Jharkhand, Shivam Sharma of Karnal (Haryana), Gorakh Devi of Patna, Vikas Sharma of Saran, Manak Manji and Rupa Devi of Bihar.