Bhubaneswar: A man allegedly cheated several women of lakhs of rupees in Jatni area by giving them false assurance of job in an NGO.

Around 40 women duped by the person, Biranchi Barik, lodged a police complaint on Wednesday.

Barik, a native of Jankia in Khurda district, had set up a fake NGO called Health and Food Corporation in January.

"Barik and another local, Satyanarayan Das, told job aspirants that their NGO had a tie-up with the Union government and that they needed people for providing nutrition to women and infants in the area," said a police officer.

"In the process, they collected anything between Rs 20,000 and Rs 50,000 from each of the job aspirants and promised them a job with a decent salary."

A victim of the job fraud said that they were not paid a single pie though they were appointed months ago.

"We were engaged to conduct survey of infants in our locality. Barik had assured us a monthly remuneration of Rs 20,000. But whenever we demanded salary, he would tell us that the Union government was taking time to release the money for some paperwork," she claimed.

However, Barik shut down the office in June after collecting several lakhs from such job aspirants.

"We have started an investigation and detained Das, who was working with Barik. We will raid their office and several other places," said deputy commissioner of police Anup Kumar Sahoo.

In May, the police had busted a human-trafficking gang in Bhubaneswar and arrested six people, including four natives of Maharashtra. The accused were nabbed while conducting a placement drive for posts - such as plumber, driver, gardener and carpenter - in the Gulf counties without having any papers for the same.

The police had then seized 75 Indian passports of the aspirants, hundreds of visiting cards of various travel agencies, more than 200 CVs and several voter's identity cards, Aadhaar cards and PAN cards from the accused.