Bar-owner baba held for cheating

THE MAN, SACHIN DUTTA, RECEIVED THE TITLES OF ‘MAHAMANDALESHWAR’ AND ‘SACHIDANAND GIRI MAHARAJ’ WHICH WERE TAKEN AWAY AFTER IT WAS FOUND THAT HE OWNED A BAR

NEW DELHI : Police on Sunday arrested a 36-year-old man, popularly known as ‘builder baba’, for allegedly duping a person of crores of rupees, promising him high returns on investment in his housing project.

Builder baba, Sachin Dutta, received the title of ‘Mahamandaleshwar’ in 2015 and ‘Sachidanand Giri Maharaj’ by a priest, but the title that was later stripped off after it was found that he owned a bar at a mall in Noida.

The matter came to the fore after a man named Narendra Barmecha alleged that Dutta, owner of Balaji Constructions , along with his mother, father and son, offered him partnership in a proposed project situated in village Manakpur in Noida, in 2011.

He alleged that he invested crores of rupees in their firm and was promised a return in 2014. As per the promise, he said he was supposed to get ₹11.5 crores, but the amount was never paid to him.

“Efforts were made to trace and arrest Sachin Dutta but he remained underground. The court then declared him a proclaimed offender in 2016,” said DCP northeast, Ajit Kumar Singla. On February 26, while an investigator was in Lucknow for a case, an informer gave him a tip-off about Dutta. “A raid was conducted at his residence and he was arrested,” Singla said.

Dutta disclosed that he had been running the construction firm for years and developed projects like Balaji Residency in Indirapuram and Foster Heights, a 14-storey apartment in Ghaziabad.

He said he also owns a discocum-bar called ‘Quantum the Leap’ in Centrestage Mall, Noida.

In 2015, he was crowned ‘Mahamandaleshwar’ in Allahabad but less than a week after the coronation, he was stripped of this title due to a controversy over his involvement in “the liquor business.”

“He also had a case of fraud against him in Sector 58 Noida, Singla said.