Engineer cheats man by posing as ministry official

NEWDELHI: Allegedly duped of Rs 3 lakh by a private company a year ago, a 34-year-old engineer decided to cheat others to recover his money, police said on Saturday. Amit Kumar Burman allegedly posed as a government official to offer a fake tender in the name of the ministry of drinking water and sanitation.

Burman, who graduated from a Dehradun engineering college in 2008, was arrested on Thursday by Delhi’s Parliament Street police after they received a complaint that he had cheated a Tripura-based man of Rs 5.2 lakh, said BK Singh, DCP (New Delhi).

Burman, who has served as an engineer in Nigeria too, had begun his own water survey business in India around two years ago. But a private company that offered him the tender had allegedly made away with his Rs 3 lakh. Burman allegedly decided to recover his money and more by cheating others using a similar modus operandi.

So, he gave newspaper advertisements in which he offered an advertisement on the behalf of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation and called out for people interested in a job as a liaison officer, said the DCP.

But when the victim, Tripuraresident Mridul Chakraborty, met him personally outside Shastri Bhawan in Delhi, Burman allegedly told him he could even arrange a tender for data collection in north-east.

When Chakraborty showed interest, Burman allegedly told him that he would have to cough up Rs 1 lakh per district as he had to “manage” officials in the ministry.

Chakraborty ended up paying Rs 5.2 lakh before realising that he was duped.