Ahmedabad: Yet another complaint has been filed against Viramsinh Rathod, who had allegedly scammed 250 people out of Rs 3 crore by posing as an official from the secretariat and promising them houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).
Pradip Kumavat, 38, a resident of Vejalpur, accused Rathod of cheating him out of Rs 20 lakh. He filed a complaint with the Anandnagar police against Rathod, a resident of Bopal, on Tuesday. He told police, “A common friend introduced me to Rathod on Nov 14, 2024, at a hotel in Anandnagar. Rathod told me that he was an official with the state secretariat and was supervising house allocation under a central govt scheme.”
Rathod, 34, a native of Khambha in Amreli, allegedly convinced Kumavat that he had the sole authority to provide houses under the PMAY scheme. Kumavat and four of his friends, believing Rathod’s claims, each paid him Rs 4 lakh. Rathod then took them to the Gota Mamlatdar office to maintain the illusion of being an official, showing them documents and pretending to upload their information onto a govt website, but each time he would claim that the govt server was down.
Later, Rathod became unreachable, and Kumavat and others learned that he had been apprehended in a case of cheating and forgery. Following this revelation, Kumavat filed a complaint with Anandnagar police. Based on the statements of Kumavat and three other victims, Anandnagar police registered a case against Rathod under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita for cheating, forgery, producing forged documents, impersonation and breach of trust.
Rathod, who allegedly scammed 250 individuals out of Rs 3 crore by posing as a secretariat official, was arrested by the DCP Zone-1 squad on Dec 24. At least four other complaints of a similar nature have been filed against him. Police investigations revealed that Rathod, an aspiring candidate for the Gujarat Public Service Commission (GPSC), had been engaging in this fraudulent activity, impersonating a government official for approximately two years.