Immigration firm owner held for cheating man

Owner of an immigration agency in Sriganganagar has been arrested for defrauding a girl’s father of lakhs of rupees on the pretext of sending her to Canada.

According to the police, Harjit Singh has been arrested after investigating the case registered on the basis of the directions issued by a court. Chak 7-DD village resident Laxman Ram had approached the court on August 1. Harjit’s father Lakhbir Singh and middleman Shravan Singh were also named in this case. Investigation about their involvement is still going on, the police said.

Laxman said that Shravan, a resident of Chak 7-DD village, got a meeting arranged with Harjit, a resident of Chak 29 FF village, who runs an immigration consultancy office in Sriganganagar, for sending his daughter Nisha to Canada. According to Laxman, he paid a total Rs 17 lakh to Harjit on different dates in 2022. Besides, Rs 65,000 had also been paid to Harjit’s father Lakhbir Singh, he added.

According to the complainant, after a few days Harjit gave him an appointment letter for Nisha and asked them to go to the Canada Visa Application Centre in Chandigarh. When Laxman went there on November 8, 2022, and delivered the letter, the centre officials said that they had not issued any letter and no appointment had been given.

Laxman said that he came back and took Shravan along and scolded Harjit for giving him a fake letter. The latter said that he would send Nisha abroad after would get the letter issued again, but he did not give any letter again.

On repeated requests, Harjit gave him a cheque for Rs 10 lakh on January 13, 2023, which was not cleared by the bank. The cheque was actually not from his account, Laxman said. Following this, Harjit returned Rs 5 lakh on September 16 and Rs 4 lakh on September 18 in 2023, but refused to pay the remaining amount.

The police said that Harjit has been arrested and was being interrogated.