A 45-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly cheating people of Rs 8 lakh on the pretext of providing them ration for 15 months, the police said on Monday.
The accused has been identified as Rajesh Kumar Bhartiya, a resident of Delhi's Nangloi, they said.
The complainant named Harish Kumar, along with 534 others, alleged that an NGO - Target Welfare Association - which was being run by Rajesh Bhartiya and others introduced a scheme under which they charged a membership fee of Rs 1,500 per person for distributing ration -- flour, rice, sugar and oil -- for a period of 15 months, the police said.
The NGO operated the scheme at different places through regular branches, they said.
The complainant alleged that the NGO neither supplied the ration nor answered phone calls when people tried to contact them. They disappeared with all the money collected via membership fee, the police said.
"During investigation, it was revealed that Rajesh Bhartiya was the main person who ran this scheme. The police arrested him from Nangloi area on Friday," Deputy Commissioner of Police (EOW) Mohammad Ali said.
The accused issued membership to the people and charged Rs 1,500 from them, and also provided them a "ration card", the police said.
According to the scheme, on each card, one could obtain any one item -- flour, rice, sugar, refined oil -- for a period of 15 months. Initially, some of the members were provided ration, but later the accused fled with Rs 8,02,500 collected via membership fees, Mr Ali said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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