Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada   

Three held on charge of cheating job-seekers

By Our Staff Reporter

VIJAYAWADA, JULY 16. He had packed all his belongings and was raring to fly off to England. The excitement was understandable, for it was to be his first-ever overseas trip-cum- job with a fabulous salary to pocket.

But two days before the much anticipated trip, 42-year-old K. Nageswara Rao's dreams lie shattered, his eyes moist with tears, as the promised trip turned out to be a "fraud.''

``I paid Rs 20,000 to them after I was promised a job in England with a monthly salary of Rs 50,000. Though I did not have the money, I borrowed from friends and relatives,'' Mr. Rao told The Hindu . A resident of Macherla town in Guntur district, Mr. Rao a few months ago lost his job in a cement company after the firm closed down its unit.

It wasn't just Rao, but scores of jobless youth and men who made a beeline to the City Police Commissioner, T.Krishna Prasad's office on Friday as news spread about the arrest of three persons who allegedly defrauded nearly 300 persons with promises of jobs in England.

The trio--U.Prabhakar (Eluru), S.Govinda Raju (Mylavaram) and Ahmed Khan (Vijayawada), were produced at a news conference by the City Police Commissioner to announce their arrests. The accused were on Thursday handed over to the police by some of the victims after the former failed to give convincing replies on the promised jobs.

Mr. Prasad told reporters that the victims became suspicious when the prime accused, Prabhakar, on beng demanded their passports and money back, started giving conflicting replies. Prabhakar reportedly gave different versions of the passports being in the possession of the UK Embassy and at Mumbai. The different claims forced the victims to catch hold of the accused and hand them over to the police, Mr. Prasad said.

During police interrogation, Prabhakar confessed to have collected about Rs 18 lakhs from the victims, the Commissioner said. The One Town Police led by the Sub Inspector, Pallam Raju, seized 170 passports, several letterheads, fake stamps and a Maruti car from Prabhakar's house in Eluru.

However, Prabhakar claimed to the media that he had no intention of cheating the victims. He said there was some "communication gap'' with the UK based company "Rigzone Oil and Gas Company'' where he wanted to find placements for the youth. He said he was still hopeful of finding them jobs. The other accused, Govinda Raju, who is a registered medical practitioner, claimed that he had only recommended the case of two poor youngsters who were eking out their living as fruit vendors. Raju said that he took up the case of the two youth on humanitarian grounds after Prabhakar promised that the job seekers would be provided free travel to England besides free food and accommodation. However, the Commissioner asserted that the trio connived to dupe the victims.

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