Two held for swindling money from govt employees for providing LTC tours

Two men were arrested for allegedly cheating several government employees on the pretext of providing them Leave Travel Concession (LTC) tours, police said Sunday.

The accused were identified as Ashwani Singh (32), a resident of Uttam Nagar and Harpat Singh (26), a resident of Hanumangarh district in Rajasthan, they said.

In June 2013, a person filed a complaint alleging that one Monika Tyagi, who introduced herself as the marketing executive in INI Tour and Travel Pvt Ltd, contacted him regarding the tour program of Jammu and Kashmir for government servants, Madhur Verma, Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) said.

The complainant agreed for the tour and paid Rs 91,000 to her, he said.

On June 15, 2013, he visited the office of the company in Delhi's Connaught Place but found nobody there, Verma added.

Apart from this, 60 more complaints from the employees of different government organizations were also filed against the alleged company, the DCP said.

During investigation, it surfaced that the company shut down the business after committing fraud with many government employees, Verma said.

However, police traced the entire staff of the company, including Monika, and interrogated them, he said.

Later, it was found that Bhavesh, Mahendra Paleja, Ashiwini Singh and Harpat Singh were behind the said fraud. They hired people and assigned them the task to sell LTC tour packages to government employees, Verma added.

They offered the LTC tour package for June 12, 2013 to June 16, 2013 and June 16, 2013 to June 20, 2013, the DCP said.

On June 12, 180 passengers departed from New Delhi to Srinagar but on June 16, when those 180 passengers moved to the Srinagar airport for their return journey, their flight was reported to be cancelled due to non-payment to the airline company, he said.

In the same way, 180 more passengers reached at the New Delhi airport to start their tour from Delhi to Srinagar on June 16 but their flight was also cancelled over the same issue, he added.

The accused persons had been absconding since 2013 and their whereabouts could not be traced, Verma added.

On Wednesday, Ashwani Singh was arrested from Uttam Nagar and Harpat Singh was traced in Gurugram and later arrested, Verma said.

Ashwani has a criminal background and was arrested in several cheating cases, the officer said.