10 booked for registering fake trust in PM’s name, 4 taken into custody
A case was lodged against 10 people for committing a fraud by registering a trust in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday and asking public representatives to donate funds for a university, police said.
Four people, including the main accused Ajay Pandey, were taken into custody for interrogation, station officer, Cantt, Rakesh Kumar said.
“A case was registered under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code against 10 people, including Ajay Pandey, for doing fraud and cheating by registering a trust in the name of honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Further investigation is on,” he confirmed.
He added that Pandey created a letter pad of the trust and used a picture of PM Modi on the letterhead.
A senior police officer said Ajay Pandey, a resident of Kabir Nagar area in Varanasi, registered the Adarsh Narendra Damodar Das Modi Jankalyankari Trust, Varanasi, on July 14.
Pandey associated himself with the trust as chief manager/trustee/founder and made some others its members.
The so-called members included Pradeep Kumar Singh, Sonu Kumar Gupta, Vikas Mishra, Priya Srivastava, Anil , Ranjita Singh, Shahbaz Khan (all from Varanasi), Avinash Singh and Rabindranath Pandey of Ballia.
The police officer said Pandey wrote a letter to the Varanasi district magistrate on July 24 and July 31, asking him to identify and allocate around 190 bigha land for the Adarsh Narendra Damodar Das Modi Antarrashtriya (International) Vishwavidyalaya to be set up in Varanasi under the trust. Pandey signed the letter as the trustee, the police officer added.
In the meantime, he wrote another letter to the district magistrate on October 29, asking him to allocate the land for the university and extend help in its construction.
The police officer said that as the matter reached the district magistrate, he suspected something was amiss and instructed the registrar to probe the issue.
On the DM’s instructions, sub registrar-2 (Sadar) Harish Chaturvedi conducted a probe and found that Pandey was cheating prominent people in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He informed the DM who then instructed Chaturvedi to lodge a case with police immediately.
Chaturvedi filed a complaint with police at Cantt police station, following which a case under Sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of document), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document)of Indian Penal Code was registered against 10 people, including Ajay Pandey, Pradeep Kumar Singh, Sonu Kumar Gupta, Vikas Mishra, Priya Srivastava, Anil, Ranjita Singh, Shahbaz Khan, all resident of different areas of Varanasi, Avinash Singh, Rabindranath Pandey of Ballia and others in this regard, the officer said.
A person privy to the matter said Pandey wrote letters to several MLAs and MPs, asking them to provide funds for the Adarsh Narendra Damodar Das Modi Antarrashtriya Vishwavidyalaya to be set up under the trust.