Two held for duping villagers in name of pension scheme

LUCKNOW: Two persons involved in duping villagers on the pretext of providing them a fixed monthly amount under the Samajwadi pension scheme were arrested in Bakshi Ka Talab (BKT) on Thursday. The duo had collected money from hundreds of villagers by distributing forged forms for scheme registration.

The two accused were identified as Mohd Arif alias Chand and Naseem Ahmad, residents of Mulsimnagar, Janakipuram. Police recovered over a hundred filled and vacant forms from their possession along with a laptop and printer used in preparing these fake forms.

“A local alerted us about these two persons who were collecting money by distributing forms for registration of Samajwadi pension scheme in Gohan Kala village. When we crosschecked, some district administration authorities confirmed that no such forms were being circulated for the pension scheme by their authorisation,” said Vijay Shanker Yadav, adding that the accused were pretending to be district administration staffers. Yadav said, so far at least 130 villagers had turned up from whom the two accused collected ` 200 each in the name of providing them scheme forms. He said the victims belonged to Gohan Kala village, but the accused had also visited two other near-by villages Naharpur and Mirzapur. Many more people are suspected to have been duped by them and police were investigating in the matter, he added.

He said an SUV was also recovered from them and their past record were being looked into, as they had also mentioned the Akhil Bhartiya Brahman Mahasabha.