Patna, June 24: A special team of Patna police arrested Lallan, brother of Rudradev Pratap, the main accused in the Rs 150-crore Muskaan non-government organisation (NGO) scandal, last evening.

Lallan was arrested in Bhojpur district and has been brought to Patna. The police will be interrogating him here, a senior police officer said. “After a tip-off, a police team was sent yesterday and they were successful in arresting Lallan. At the moment, the police are on a look out for Rudradev,” Patna city superintendent of police Shivdeep Lande said.

Police sources said Rudradev could be in Delhi but at present the police doesn’t have a definite clue about him. Rudradev, who started Muskaan, disappeared last year after duping people of around Rs 150 crore. The police here have been investigating the case and arrests too are likely soon, said sources.

On March 14, four people were arrested in connection with the scam. “Four people were arrested earlier in this connection. They have been identified as Vijendra Tiwary, the deputy director-in-chief of Muskaan, Akhileshwar Kumar Singh, the planning director, Gyan Prakash an official with the NGO and Ajay Pandey, the finance director of Muskaan,” Lande had said.

On March 25, one Swami Jeetendra, a self-proclaimed godman, who used to attend all public functions organised by the NGO in a bid to attract more people, was arrested.

In March, the Opposition accused animal husbandry minister Giriraj Singh of “promoting” Rudradev as he had attended a huge public function organised by the NGO owner on June 7, 2010.

Pratap first took out advertisements in the local media promising to usher in white revolution in the state. He offered cows to investors and jobs to the youths and held massive public functions at the Miller School in 2009 and SK Memorial Hall in 2010, which was attended by ministers and legislators.

Pratap floated the NGO and took money from around 4,000 youths in the name of running Kisaan Haat, Kisaan Gaushala, Sramodaya Vidyalaya, a dairy besides other initiatives under Muskaan and offered them jobs as district co-ordinators, programme co-ordinators, Kisaan Sevaks and even distributed cows at a subsidised rate of Rs 11,000.

The labour superintendent in Patna had filed a case against Rudradev and three others on March 23, 2010. Investigations revealed that the NGO, which was registered in Delhi in 2007, was raising money from the people in the pretext of giving them jobs.

The chargesheet against the accused was submitted on September 30, 2010 but they obtained bail from the court.

Later Rudradev, in December 2010, filed a case in the local court charging one Bijender Tiwari and 11 others with trying to kidnap him.

However, investigations of the Patliputra police station revealed that the case was just a ploy to save himself from people, who were demanding their money back.

Another case was lodged against Pratap and others on the basis of a complaint received in the chief minister’s janata darbar on March 7 this year in Patna.