The police on Monday arrested two persons involved in selling of fake gold statues to the public here. The arrested, Prodip Milli and Amojit Milli, both aged around 30 years, belong to Baligaon village of Majuli district in Assam.
Itanagar SDPO Kamdam Sikom informed that several complaints were received by the police about some unscrupulous persons making random phone calls to people and offering to sell gold statues for a lesser price while claiming that those sculptures had been unearthed while digging a construction site.
Accordingly, one Mangam Takang, a resident from Vivek Vihar here who had already fallen prey to the scam lodged an FIR stating that Prodip had in the month of March approached him and told him that he has found a gold statue of Jesus Christ (weighing around 2.3 kg) from a river bank and he wanted to sell it.
“Being a Christian by faith, Takang agreed to purchase the statue and also paid an advance of Rs. 6, 35,800/- to Prodip during a deal made at Banderdewa. After receiving the amount the seller suddenly disappeared from the venue leaving the so-called gold statue at the place of deal. Later on checking the statue it was found to be made of brass,” Sikom told Northeast Now.
Following this, a case under section 420/34 IPC was registered at the Itanagar police station after which a team of police personnel led by inspector Karbom Tao (investigating officer) and assistant sub-inspector PK Gohain launched an operation and arrested Prodip and Amojit from Majuli and Lakhimpur respectively.
The entire operation was carried out under the supervision of SDPO Sikom.
Meanwhile, Sikom has further appealed to the public not to fall prey to such fraudulent callers and report any such case at the nearest police station.