Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, July 4

As the police arrested three members of a gang indulging in duping people by exchanging their fake currency notes with real ones of the victims recently, their interrogation revealed that the gang had roots in the entire state and it had committed 35 fraud incidents in Punjab and Ambala with the same modus operandi in the past around two years.

The three gang members were arrested while committing a fraud outside Allahabad Bank at the Jamalpur chowk where they had lured a brother-sister duo to take Rs 1.5 lakh and give them only Rs 25,000 on Friday. Only two currency notes put on the upper and lower side of the bundle were real and the rest were either fake notes or white papers but they convinced them that they were carrying real currency notes.

The arrested members were identified as Ram Saroop of Gobindsar Shimlapuri mohalla, Taranjit Singh of SAS Nagar mohalla, near Military camp, and Ram Darsh of Dhandari Khurd. Other gang members, Ranjan of Dhandari Khurd and Amit of Puneet Nagar, are yet to be arrested.

ADCP-IV Rupinder Kaur Sran said: “The gang had been active in the city for the past few years but this time its members had been apprehended after they committed their first crime in Ludhiana. The police would bust the entire gang by arresting its two remaining members so that people are not duped of their hard-earned money.

The trio were arrested by the team of Jamalpur police station SHO Kulwant Malhi. Earlier, the gang was headed by Ram Saroop. He was operating with Ranjan and Amit. Later, Ranjan and Amit were declared proclaimed offenders by the courts of Ambala and Khanna, said the ADCP.

“Afterwards, Ram Saroop formed a new group with Taranjeet and Ram Darsh. They got bail from a jail in December 2020. Interestingly, the gang have committed around 35 such fraud incidents, including 12 in Ludhiana, nine in Ambala, seven each in Khanna and Gobindgarh,” said the ADCP.

The ADCP advised people not to fall for any luring offers made by such miscreants. “These miscreants are mainly present outside banks and sometimes they reach public places to target migrants. They offer people more money in return for less amount. Our police team will now roam around banks in civvies to keep a tab over such fraudsters,” she said.