The police arrested Nikhil Thakur (26), a resident of Ganhol village in Kasauli, for duping a Solan resident of Rs 1.72 lakh in lieu of providing jobs to his children in the Military Engineering Services (MES), Chandimandir.
He was arrested from Nalagarh last evening where he is facing a similar case of cheating. He was produced before a local court by the police today for securing his remand, informed Solan SP Gaurav Singh.
Despite being jobless himself, the manner in which he managed to convince people of providing them government jobs has left the police surprised. His arrest has also exposed how people yearn to secure a government job by hook or crook even if it meant adopting unauthorised channels.
Devendra Thakur, a resident of Damkadi village in Solan, lodged a complaint that five months ago, his sister-in-law’s husband Manohar Lal told him that a person from his village, Nikhil Thakur, is deputed as superintendent in MES, Chandimandir.
Some vacancies had been notified in the MES, where ITI or those having diploma were to be recruited and Thakur could help in securing them. After a few days, he got a call from Thakur, who asked him to send his son’s diploma certificate, Aadhar card etc on WhatsApp. The complainant sent his son and daughter’s documents to Thakur. The next day, the same person called and said the papers of the children had been verified by Colonel Sahib at MES Chandimandir and he would have to pay Rs 50,000 for the papers and other procedures. On which he transferred Rs 50,000 to the bank account number given by Thakur.
However, he sought more money from him the next day and acceding to his request, Devendra transferred a total of Rs 1.22 lakh to Nikhil Thakur through Google Pay on different dates. In January, Nikhil Thakur sent the appointment letter of his son Tapan on WhatsApp. The son was ordered to report at Chandimandir between February 3 to February 13.
Thereafter, Thakur stopped responding to his calls. Apart from this, Manohar Lal had also given money to Nikhil. On inquiry, it was found that no person named Nikhil Thakur was deputed at MES Chandimandir. A case was registered at Sadar police station in Solan on February 27 for cheating, forgery and dishonestly inducing someone to give property.
While two cases have been registered against him at Solan and Nalagarh, several others are looking for him to recover their money. As per the Solan police, he is a habitual offender who had duped at least Rs 13 lakh in six cases.
He was earlier arrested by the Dhabota police in Nalagarh on February 27. According to the complainant, Sunil Kumar, a resident of village Sarela, Thakur had cheated him and his niece in lieu of securing a job of clerk and driver in MES for his children and extracted Rs 2.15 lakh from him.
By
