Finance co head held

LUDHIANA, Dec 30: Police have arrested Prabhat Kumar Ranjan, chairman of Multiline Farms and Projects Limited, on the charges of fraud and cheating. The accused, booked along with three others under Section 420 of the IPC, has been remanded to police custody till December 31.

Superintendent of Police Headquarters Gurpreet Deo said that Ranjan, along with Mohinder Yadav, Suresh Rai and R.K. Singh, had launched the company here in 1997 and sought deposits at attractive rates of interest. The investors were assured that their money was secure and would be returned along with interest at maturity. However, the company closed down its office here and all the functionaries fled, leaving hundreds of small investors in the lurch.

According to Deo, the accused had used a part of the deposits to float another outfit at Jalandhar to continue their fraudulent operations.

In another case, the police have slapped criminal charges under Sections 205/420 IPC against Amrik Singh, a resident of Giddri village in this district. The accused is alleged to have withdrawn the maturity deposit of Rs 3,300 from a local finance company on the basis of a false affidavit and fabricated documents. The money was payable to a widow, Narinder Kaur, of the same village.