Bhubaneswar, Aug. 7: Police today arrested the owner of a real estate company and his employee for allegedly cheating a person on the pretext of providing him a land.

The accused were identified as Orissa Homes Pvt Ltd director Sukant Kumar Acharya and the company manager Digdarshan Kanungo.

The police said the accused had taken Rs 5 lakh from one Naba Kumar Sahoo promising him a 2,000sqft land at Sunderpada on the city outskirts. However, the accused neither provided Sahoo with the land nor did he return his money.

The company was set up in 2008 at Nayapalli and promised to sell plots and houses at affordable price.

Police sources said the company had collected a large amount of money from a number of people in the city by promising them plots and houses. “We are investigating to find out whether the accused have collected money from others,” said inspector in charge of Nayapalli police station K.C. Mund.

In a similar case on July 31, the police arrested builder and managing director of Semax Builders Private Ltd, Nirmal Kumar Behera, 42, on charges of duping more than 100 persons of Rs 1.1 crore on the pretext of providing them residential plots. Fraud by real estate firms is on a rise here. The police said that around 50 cases were registered against several real estate firms last month. In the past three months, almost a dozen builders have been arrested.