Bihar NGO director arrested for Rs.150 crore fraud

Patna June 13 (IANS) The director of a Patna-based NGO was arrested here Wednesday for allegedly being part of a racket that collected over Rs.150 crore from farmers and students in Bihar on the promise of giving them jobs, police said.

Rudra Dev Pratap of the NGO Muskan Pariyojna, who had been absconding for nearly two years, was arrested near the Patna railway station, a police official said.

'He was arrested on a tip-off that he was visiting Patna after a long time,' he said.

Pratap was one of the five people accused of collecting Rs.150 crore from about 4,000 students and farmers for training them in cattle rearing and dairy farming and then getting them jobs at the panchayat and block levels.

Four of the accused are in jail.

Pratap, who is in his early 40s, had started Muskaan Pariyojna in Delhi in early 2000 and later shifted to Patna.

According to police, between April 2007 and March 2010, the NGO duped youths with promises of jobs from district and block levels to villages, charging Rs.18,500 to Rs.28,500 for a post.