Police bust Mobile Tower gang in Golmuri, three arrested

Jamshedpur : Next time you come across any call offering you the monthly rental and huge sum of money along with a job for letting out your land for mobile tower, be careful before you give in to such a tempting proposal. It may sweep away your money instead.

In a major breakthrough, the district police busted a gang of racketeers who used to dupe innocent people, especially those living in the rural area, for coughing up money to give a portion of their land on rent in the name of setting up mobile towers.

Those arrested were identified as Saday Kumar Singh, Ashok Kumar Mahto and Ram Kumar. When the accused Saday and Ram Kumar are residents of Parsudih and Bagbera respectively, Ashok hails from neighbouring Seraikela.

According to the police, Saday was the mastermind in the racket and the police have seized six cell-phones and 16 sim cards from the arrested persons.

The three accused persons had amassed over Rs 2.5 crores from over 800 people by taking Rs 20,000 from each of the victims in the name of registration fee for hiring their land.

Significantly, the arrested men had cheated people places like Malda, Murshidabad, Burdwan, South Dinajpur and Purulia in West Bengal, Madhubani, Sultanpur, Patna, Sitamarhi and Jamui in Bihar. Bokaro and Koderma in Jharkhand and Bhubaneswar in Odisha during the past five years.

Revealing about the breakthrough, senior SP, Amol V Homkar said that last night they got a tip off that a gang of rackeeters were lodged at Hotel Sidhu in Golmuri. Acting on the tip off, a police team raided the place and nabbed the trio.

The apparently lucrative proposals for installation of mobile towers are luring the residents, both rural and urban, into the trap of many fake companies.

Many of them have fallen prey to the bait of these companies who come out with advertisements inviting the people to earn monthly income in lieu of giving their land for mobile towers on lease.

However, the reality is that these dubious people do not actually operate in the segment and instead try to squeeze out money in the name of registration fee from the innocent buyer.

The district administration seems to be quite ignorant over the prevailing situation that is keeping hard earned money of people at stake.

Sources reveal that such companies have cheated hundreds of people to the tune of crores of rupees. Many of such fake companies functioning in the name of mobile tower installation for reputed service providers are difficult to be identified.

“We have gathered information that during the past five years, the accused had accumulated over Rs 2.5 crores in the registration fee from over 800 people, but when no tower was set up anywhere the victims started reacting.

On of the staff, Rahul Kumar Pandey, informed the police about the trio, leading us to nab the racketeers,” Homkar told the newsmen.

He, however, said that there was no balance in the bank accounts of the accused who would share the money between themselves immediately after getting the money.