Salt Lake: Seven persons, including the HR manager of a private consultancy firm operating out a Sector V office, were arrested on Sunday for allegedly duping many people by promising regular rent in return for space to install mobile network towers of Jio.

Most of the people who were allegedly cheated are from small towns and villages in Bengal and the northeastern states of Mizoram and Meghalaya. The fraud involves more than Rs 5 crore.

One of the accused has been identified as Sheikh Giyasuddin, a resident of Basirhat living in Beraberi, Rajarhat. His alleged accomplice, Sheikh Kalam, is from Madhyamgram. There are three women in the group, investigators said.

They have been charged with cheating, forgery of valuable security and criminal conspiracy, among other offences punishable under the Indian Penal Code.

If convicted, they could be imprisoned for up to a decade.

A team from the cyber crime police station in Salt Lake picked up the four men and three women from their third-floor office in Sector V's DN Block on the basis of a complaint lodged by Animesh Kumar Das, manager of security and loss prevention at Reliance Jio.

An officer in the Bidhannagar police commissionerate said the accused used to call people and ask them if they had a vacant plot of land or terrace space that they wanted to rent out for mobile phone towers of Jio.

"They would then convince the victims to pay a 'registration fee' and a 'no-objection fee' in the name of TRAI."