Patna, Nov. 28: Promise of an early start to career without any hiccups landed a number of youths in the trap laid by Mohammed Salim, a middle-aged man, accused of running a fake call centre racket in the state.

Police today raided a shop, Safe Sensex, located in the Imam Plaza building, and arrested Salim, a resident of the Maalsalami area of Patna City.

According to the police, the accused had duped a number of people of large sums of money on the pretext of providing job opportunities.

Though the police refused to divulge more information before interrogation, they said the man had started the racket around a year ago with a fake call centre at Sumiti Path Gali under Sultanganj police station.

At that time, Salim had published advertisements inviting interested candidates to join his call centre. “He had opened the office in the Mahendru area and employed three girls and two boys after taking Rs 8,500 from each of them. Salim told the recruits that they would get a monthly salary of Rs 4,000. The youths were asked to go to different places in and around the city and open up franchises of the same call centre and hire more people taking Rs 8,500 from each recruit. Another office of the call centre was opened at the Sarai area in Vaishali district and many more people were hired. However, after few months, the man suddenly closed down both the offices and disappeared. By then he had collected a lot of money. The amount, so far, has been estimated to be around Rs 70,000,” an officer at the Pirbhore police station told The Telegraph.

The people whom Salim had duped later started searching for him and approached the Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) pleading for help. The SSP then ordered the cops to hunt down the man.

“Today, we got an information from our sources that Salim had opened another call center in the Imam Plaza building by the name of Safe Sensex. A raid was carried out and the police were successful in nabbing Salim. Few computers were also recovered from the spot,” the officer said.

When Salim closed down his first office in the Sumiti Gali area and disappeared, the victims had lodged an FIR with the Sultanganj police station. “After his arrest, Salim has been sent to the same police station,” the officer said.

At present, the man is being interrogated about the total number of people he has duped and the estimated amount can increase.

The SSP said people needed to be careful while joining such organisations. “In the past few months, the police have come across many such complaints where youths have been cheated on the pretext of job and career options. People need to be very careful while trusting smaller organisations with strange job offers,” the officer said.