Man held from Rajasthan’s Alwar for online fraud

Shimla: The Kullu police has arrested a man from Rajasthan’s Alwar for allegedly duping a resident of Chamba of over Rs 1.10 lakh after putting up an advertisement on an online portal for selling a car, police said on Thursday.

The accused, Irfan, was arrested on Wednesday from his village, Ghati Baas Chandoli in Rajasthan’s Alwar district, by a police team led by Assistant Sub-Inspector Prakash Chand, Kullu Superintendent of Police (SP) Gaurav Singh said.

The accused would be produced before a chief judicial magistrate’s (CJM) court on Thursday for obtaining his police custody, he added.

In a complaint lodged at the Bhuntar police station on November 28 last year, complainant Suresh Kumar, a resident of Chamba’s Pangi, stated that he struck a deal to purchase a car from the accused for Rs one lakh after coming across the advertisement put up by the latter on online portal OLX.

The accused had sent the registration certificate and photographs of the car to him on WhatsApp, the complainant had stated.

The accused told the complainant on WhatsApp that the car would be sent to him in Kullu through the Army postal service for which he would have to pay Rs 5,120 as the postal charges which would be refunded, the complaint had stated.

The complainant sent the said amount to the accused through a mobile application after receiving the receipt of the Army postal service on WhatsApp, the former had alleged.

The next day, the accused called him from another number, claiming that he was speaking from the office of the Army postal service and the car would soon be handed over to him, but he would have to pay a refundable amount of Rs 15,550, the complaint stated.

The complainant further alleged that the accused received a total of Rs 1,10,300 from him through the mobile application in the name of service charges stating that the same would be refunded, but neither the money was paid back to him nor the car delivered.