Four people have been arrested for allegedly duping over 4,000 people by promising them jobs under the Centre's flagship Ayushman Bharat scheme, officials said on Monday.
The accused had created a fake website, which resembled a government site, and placed an advertisement for thousands of jobs. They charged aspirants Rs 5,000 as registration fees, the police said.
The National Health Authority, the agency that administers the health assurance scheme Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, registered a complaint with police alleging that it received grievances from public regarding an "unscrupulous agency" which was portraying a false association with the scheme.
The accused have been identified as Umesh (37), Rajat Singh (33), Gaurav (26) and Seema Rani Sharma (33).
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber Cell) Anyesh Roy said the arrests were made on the basis of technical analysis and a laptop, four mobile phones along with ATM cards were recovered from the possession of the accused.
The details of the website https://ayushman-yojana.org were obtained and the payment gateway and the bank account linked with it analysed during the investigation.
"During interrogation, the accused revealed that they hatched a conspiracy to dupe people in the name of Ayushman Scheme of Govt. of India. For this, they first formed Ayushman Yojana Trust and accused Rajat Singh, being a web designer, designed a website like a genuine government website," the DCP said.
The police said further investigation is underway and efforts are being made to nab the remaining accused.