Bhubaneswar, May 21: Around 70 job aspirants today lodged a complaint with Nayapalli police against a private company which had allegedly duped them of nearly Rs 10 lakh by promising jobs.

The police have detained Avinash Singh, the owner of Eleven Commandments, the company in question. He is being interrogated.

The job seekers alleged that they had been assured of jobs by the Nayapalli-based software company. However, the company did not give them any job and the owner locked his office last month.

“During interviews, the company officials had taken some money from us for providing jobs. The amount varied from Rs 15,000 to Rs 35,000. Everyone was given an appointment letter. He initially employed some of us, but then closed the office,” said Debashis Dash, a student.

The company that started its office at Nayapalli in January had assured the youths jobs in the city. A job aspirant said those, who had been appointed in the initial phase, were asked to deposit Rs 15,000 and assured of a monthly salary of Rs 10,000. Those, who were selected in the later phases, had to pay even more though a lesser salary was assured.

“After my appointment, I had worked there for three months, but they did not pay me a single penny. Around 20 of us had been working there for three months and none of us got any salary,” said Sunil Lenka, another student.

After these students demanded their salaries, the company officials tried to avoid them. The youths demanded their money back, which they had deposited to the company for guarantying their jobs. “We were fooled by Avinash, who claimed to have come from Bengal. He and all his staff were very sophisticated and fluent in English,” said one of the youths.

Another youth said the company owner kept on saying that he would return their money back, but after April 17, he closed the office. Avinash told them that he was trying to arrange money. “We waited for around one month to get our money back. Fearing that he might leave the state, we also kept our eyes on him. He even threatened us that he would lodge complaint against us. This afternoon, he came to the police station to complain that we had been harassing him,” said Santosh Sethi, a job aspirant, who had paid Rs 25,000 to get a job.

Seeing Avinash entering the police station, all the youths, who had been duped by him, gathered in front of the police station and complained with the inspector-in-charge.

The police said the job seekers had lodged a complaint. An officer said: “We are trying for a mutual settlement between the two sides, so that the job aspirants at least get their money back. If it does not happen, we will file a regular case.”

On May 17, the officers in capital police station had arrested a crook, Maithili Soren Pattnaik, who had duped several job aspirants of around Rs 40 lakh after promising them to provide jobs in the IT sector. The police, following complaints from one job seeker, Sanjiv Mallick, arrested Pattnaik, who had owned a placement agency at OUAT Square. The police booked him under sections 420, 468, 294 and 506 of the Indian Penal Code.