Coimbatore: UP man held for taking job seekers for a ride

Coimbatore: A youth said to be from Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) has been tactfully arrested by the Coimbatore police on a charge of cheating several youth with false promises of jobs, sources said on Friday.

Vivek Kumar Pande, a graduate owning a private jobs placement firm in U.P. had allegedly promised jobs to seven persons here, promising them fancy salaries, but did not deliver.

Pande got the initial contacts, thanks to a Facebook friendship he struck with a 26-year-old woman graduate Aarthi, of Erode Veerappan Chathiram, who also runs an employment placement firm in Coimbatore.

Police said Pande, on gaining Aarathi’s confidence, requested her to refer a few South Indian candidates for private jobs in North India. She had referred seven persons, all graduates looking for jobs. Pande, promising them jobs, asked each of them to pay an initial sum through net banking, which came to Rs 4.25 lakh.

After collecting the money, Pande went silent. The job-hunters approached Aarathi in a bid to get their money back. When she lodged a complaint with the city crime branch, they suggested that she talk to Pande in a “friendly way” and persuade him to come to Coimbatore for sight-seeing.  

As suggested by the police, Aarthi went by their plan and when Vivek Kumar Pande came to Coimbatore recently, police arrested him on charges of cheating and lodged him in Coimbatore central prison after producing him in a local court.