Police has booked five persons, including a woman, for allegedly duping residents of Sector 26, Panchkula, Chandimandir to the tune of Rs. 26.77 lakhs under the pretext of getting them work visa and permanent residency in Canada. The case under section 24 of The Emigration Act, 1983, section 120-B, 406 and 420 of the IPC 1860 has been registered yesterday afternoon.
According to the complaint, the accused, Kailash Sethi, Gurpreet Sethi, Rakhi Gill, Rudra and Gagan contacted the complainant, Ankit Gaur, who was planning to immigrate to Canada with his wife and father last year.
The accused group alleged to have assured Gaur to get him a work permit along with a job offer letter and permanent residency for his family, including his father, according to the complaint, all of it was finalised for Rs 30 Lakhs, which would be bifurcated in cash and bank transactions. He further added that he paid Rs 2.5 Lakh along with the family’s passports and documents in September, then additional Rs 3 Lakhs in October, followed by Rs 8 Lakhs cash withdrawn from the complainant’s family members’ account, while a bank transaction of Rs. 13,77,000 was made.
The complainant claimed that they waited for the response from the accused for 4-5 months as they maintained a regular touch with them to get updates for their visa status but got unsatisfactory answers. Finally, after enough waiting the complainant visited the accused group in their Chandigarh offices in January where he was told that their visa has gone to New Delhi for further processes and all they required was a week wait. The family ended up waiting till mid-February where they maintained a constant touch with the accused.
Till Tuesday, when the complainant’s father Jai Karan Sharma, claimed he was repeatedly contacted and threatened by Rakhi Gill, Rudra, and Hemant to pay the balance amount of Rs. 3,23,000. According to the FIR, the complainant and his family were taken aback and wanted to know how the accused could demand the last installment when nothing had been done towards the visa as previously assured. The accused persons said that they could not comment about any previous understanding and further insisted that without clearing the last installment, the file would not be processed further.