Secy of co-op housing in New Town held for duping on pretext of providing flat

Kolkata: Bidhannagar North Police station arrested a person on Sunday night on charges of duping a resident of Rajarhat to the tune of nearly 8.5 lakh with the promise of offering a flat at a cooperative society .

The offender Adityalal Mukherjee, who is the secretary of the cooperative society, was nabbed from Nagerbazar area.

According to police sources, the investigation of the case was taken up on the basis of a complaint lodged by one Avijit Mukherjee at Bidhannagar North Police station on April 2.

Mukherjee, a resident of a multi-storeyed apartment in Ghoshpara area in Gopalpur, Rajarhat, had contacted Adityalal for booking an apartment after seeing an advertisement on a leading Bengali daily.

A senior officer of Bidhannagar North Police station informed that the complainant had booked a flat on October 2012 at a cooperative society in which Aditya was the secretary.

He had executed an agreement on January 16, 2013 by paying Rs 8,40,000.

As per the agreement, the completion of the project was on the last day of the year 2014 but the project has not seen the light of the day till date.

The complainant after waiting for more than three years, expecting delivery of the flat, decided to demand a refund of his money.

However, Adityalal started avoiding him.

During the course of investigation, it was found out that the person is a habitual offender and has 17 such similar cases pending against him at different police stations in Bidhannagar and its adjoining areas.

The oldest case registered against him was in 2003 while the bulk of the complaints were made in 2017.

He was produced at Bidhannagar Court on Monday and was remanded to police custody.

"We will interrogate him to find out if there are others involved in this forgery," a senior official of Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate said.