Aug. 17: Two men, including a an MCom student, have been arrested for allegedly running a call centre illegally in Sector V and duping people living in the US by claiming to be officials of the American government's "grants department".

Ankur Dubey, 25, a resident of Girish Park, and Prasanjeet Prabhat, 26, who lives in Baguiati, were picked up today from their company - NDMS Infotech Pvt Ltd - in Sector V's EN Block.

Dubey is doing his MCom.

An officer of the Bidhannagar commissionerate said the duo had taken more than 10 seats on hire along with computers and Internet connections. "They failed to provide any licence, permission or registration documents of their company," the officer said.

The employees of Dubey and Prabhat would allegedly call up people in the US and identify themselves as officials of the American government's "grants department".

"They would call up an intended victim and tell her that she had been allotted a grant. Then they would ask her for her bank and other details," the officer said.

"The call centre employees were making the calls using the voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP) of Germany, Canada and the US," said Santosh Pandey, deputy commissioner, headquarters, Bidhannagar commissionerate.

Dubey and Prabhat have been charged under IPC sections 419 (cheating by impersonation) and 420 (cheating), and under the IT act and the Indian telegraph act.