BHOPAL: Son and daughter-in-law of ex-JNU professor have been arrested in an online fraud case in Madhya Pradesh. A 46-year-old man and his third wife held by Cyber Cell have allegedly duped jobless youngsters under the pretext of providing lucrative jobs under various projects of Centre for Development Studies (CDS) – an autonomous body under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD).
The couple identified as Sohail Ahmad and wife Zahira Rafique was arrested from Mumbai, after detailed investigation into two cases lodged at Indore and Bhopal. The probe revealed that fake job racket was being run with the help of a fake website.
ADG Cyber Purshottam Sharma said, “Before 2016, Sohail was running a fertiliser business, but due to losses and mounting debts, Sohail plunged into the world of cyber fraud and began duping jobless youngsters through the fake portal and associated e-mail accounts.
The jobless youths were convinced to transfer major sums of money into the bank accounts held by Sohail and his three wives.”
He added that two teams, one headed by inspector in Bhopal Cyber Cell unit’s Abhishek Sonekar managed to crack the case and track Sohail and his third wife.
An Indore man who was duped by Sohail’s racket was made to deposit over Rs 17 lakh in the bank accounts, while a Bhopal-based man was made to deposit over Rs 1.5 lakh in the name of application form, training and other processes before recruitment, the police officer added.
The grilling of the couple has revealed that Sohail is also accused in similar cases in Cyberabad (Telangana) and Gandhinagar (Gujarat). He was out on bail after being arrested a few months back in one of the two cases registered against him in Cyberabad.
“As of now, investigations have revealed that Sohail had duped jobless youths of over Rs 90 lakhs in his and wives’ bank accounts,” the ADG added.
