Bhubaneswar, Aug. 18: The chairman of a private management college here was arrested today for allegedly duping a person of Rs 32.93 lakh.

The accused had committed to provide land to the victim for a housing project in 2012, but the plot turned out to be the property of the sevayats of Lingaraj temple.

Police said Gangadhar Sahu, 74, a resident of Saheed Nagar, was arrested on charges of fraud following a complaint by the victim, Nisakar Rout.

"Rout realised the fraud when he found out that land belonging to servitors of Lingaraj temple could not be sold. Rout demanded his money back, but Sahu did not return it. Consequently, he lodged a formal complaint on July 10 and we arrested Sahu," said inspector in-charge of Saheed Nagar police station Deepak Kumar Mishra.

Further investigations revealed that Sahu had produced fake documents related to the land. The complainant was also allegedly assaulted by the accused when he insisted on his money being returned.

"Sahu was arrested under section 341 (wrongful restraint), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 294 (use of obscene language), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of Indian Penal Code," said a police official.

On June 19, the economic offences wing of the state crime branch had arrested a senior official of Salara Realcon Private Ltd, which had allegedly cheated around 250 people of Rs 20 crore on the pretext of providing them land. The investigating agency had arrested marketing director of the company Kailash Muduli on charges of misappropriating Rs 20 lakh from the company's account.

Land fraud has become a major concern for the police and city residents. While the police have registered cases against 115 builders in 2013 and 2014, as many as 65 builders have been arrested during this period for cheating. The economic offences wing of the state crime branch had also registered around 30 such cases in 2014 and arrested 28 people.