By IANS,
New Delhi : A 28-year-old ex-deck officer in the merchant navy was arrested from Jharkhand for duping over 70 students from private coaching centres of over Rs.1 crore on the pretext of getting them coastal training in maritime institutes, Delhi Police said Wednesday.
Vikas Kumar was arrested Tuesday from Jharkhand’s Ranchi district. Over Rs.1 crore and other valuables were recovered from him, police said.
He is accused of duping students aspiring for jobs in merchant navy and undergoing coaching and training in private institutes.
The institutes where these students were undergoing training are Institute of Paramedical, Management and Technology, which has a branch in Delhi and other states, and Institute of Professional Studies and Research, which has campuses in Orissa, and IPSR maritime.
His arrest came after a complaint filed July 21 by Vinod Rana, who is associated with one of the institutes, in south Delhi’s Mehrauli area, police said.
He said that Vikas Kumar was assigned the task of establishing links with maritime institutes in Kolkata and Mumbai for getting the admission of their students for coastal training.
The complaint said Vikas Kumar asked the institutes to send 70 students and transfer Rs.1 crore and Rs.5 lakh in two different bank accounts, respectively.
After the money was transferred, he went missing, said a police official.
During the investigation, it was found out that the accused recently withdrew Rs.30,000 from an ATM in Ranchi. A raid was conducted and the accused was apprehended from the house of his in-laws, the official said.
“In order to earn quick money, the accused took to crime,” the official added.