Representative image of a registered FIR.
Credit: iStock Photo
The Gadag CEN police have booked six people for cheating 39 people of nearly Rs 3.3 crore by promising them government jobs.
The suspects are: Anandeshwara Hiremath, 36, Nidhi Anandeshwara Hiremath, 32, Jason John D’Souza, 36, Lewin John D’Souza, 36, Mahendra, 35, and Rakesh, 36.
The police booked the six people following a complaint by Nagabhushanaswami Hiremath, the cousin of accused number 1 Anandeshwara.
It is said that the suspects cheated 39 job aspirants from Gadag, Dharwad, Bagalkot and Koppal districts. A majority of them are from Mundargi taluk in Gadag district.
The suspects took money from the aspirants in instalments between December 2020 and December 2021, promising to get jobs for the aspirants through influential people they knew as “the government has not taken up regular recruitment of people for jobs due to Covid-19”.
When the suspects failed to keep the promise, the aspirants pressured them to return the money. Except Anandeshwara, the others returned Rs 70 lakh to some of the aspirants through cheques and via RTGS. The remaining Rs 2,59,75,000 is yet to be returned, the complaint said.