Immigration centre owner among three booked for fraud in Faridkot

Faridkot, June 7

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The registration of a criminal case against the owner of an IELTS and immigration centre in Faridkot has stirred a controversy.

Deepak Sharma, his wife Shikha Sharma and manager of his centre Arashdeep Singh have been booked for cheating. The police claimed that inquiries in three complaints against the suspects had found that they had received Rs 31 lakh from the complainants to send them aboard, but instead, the centre was closed and Deepak fled the country.

However, Deepak alleged that he was forced to close the centre after he received extortion calls from a Canada-based gangster and the police did not act on his complaints. He claimed that he approached an AAP leader, Gurtej Singh Khosa (Chairman, Faridkot Improvement Trust), to prevail upon the police to provide him security in view of the threat to his life. He alleged that Khosa raised the demand of Rs 1 lakh per month. “I deposited Rs 50,000 in Khosa’a bank account on December 22, 2022,” he said.

Khosa denied the allegations, saying Deepak was levelling false allegations against him. He claimed that Rs 50,000 was transferred to his account before he was appointed as the Chairman of the Improvement Trust.

The AAP leader claimed that Deepak owed him Rs 1 lakh as he had paid this amount on his behalf to an advertisement agency in September 2022.

“Deepak had deposited Rs 50,000 in my bank account because of that. Now, after the police have registered a criminal case against him and his family, he is trying to tarnish my image,” claimed Khosa.

Faridkot DSP Raman Preet Singh said Deepak and his family had duped many innocent persons on the pretext of sending them abroad.

He said that after the police investigation found that his sister-in-law and mother-in-law were also involved in this racket, the police had registered a criminal case against them and the sister-in-law had been arrested.