Sexagenarian held for duping job-seekers

According to the police, sixty-eightyear old Venkatachalam from Kovaipudur had taken money from job seekers through a Trichy-based travels firm in Singapore. He had lured them by saying that as he had worked in Singapore, he has good contacts in companies there. 

Police said Venkatachalam had collected up to Rs 1.6 lakh from five persons for the job in Singapore. “They all hail from a poor family background and were looking for jobs as drivers, servers and other skill-based works,” police said. 

Despite taking money from them several months ago, Venkatachalam had failed to get them a job. When they pressurized him to return their money, Venkatachalam began to evade meeting them or attending their calls. 

Based on a complaint by Charles, 30 from Beema Nagar in Trichy, the CCB cops registered a case and arrested the accused. Four more persons, Ganesh, Karthick and Arockiaraj, all hailing from Trichy and Murugan from Pondicherry have given similar complaints against the accused. 

Police said that Venkatachalam is already facing a case of job cheating, registered against him in the year 2010 in Coimbatore city. Police have produced him before Judicial Magistrate VII and he has been lodged in the Coimbatore Central Prison. Police are probing to know if he is part of a larger network of job scamsters.

A 47-year-old man who impersonated as a IPS officer at Madurai Airport was arrested, on Wednesday. The accused, later, identified as Idhayathullah, from Tahsildar Nagar in Madurai, had gone to domestic terminal of Madurai Airport on Wednesday night to receive his friend from Chennai and had tried to sneak into the airport. When CISF personnel stopped him, he had claimed that he was an IPS officer and entered into a verbal duel with the officials. 

Immediately, CISF Inspector, Saminathan, went to the spot and asked Idhayathullah to produce his ID card. But, when he showed one, it had the name of Rajesh Kumar IPS printed in it. 

Saminathan grew suspicious and checked with the officials. He found out that Idhyathullah was duping them and therefore informed the police, who secured him and booked a case. 

Based on a tip off, officials attached to health department raided a private clinic at Athipatti near Peraiyur in Madurai district and found that the doctor, Krisnaveni (28), from Usilampatti, who was running the clinic, has not studied MBBS. They found that she was a homeopathy doctor but practised allopathy. The clinic was sealed and she along with her aide Selvarani was secured.