E-Paper
2 Golden Temple devotees cheated in fake online booking scam
Police registered a case on the complaint of a manager of the Golden Temple; the two devotees had booked their rooms online
Two devotees, who had come to visit the Golden Temple, fell prey to online fraud when the booking they had made for their rooms at Saragarhi sarai here through a portal turned out to be fake, police said on Sunday.
E-Division station house officer (SHO) Sukhinder Singh said that on the complaint of the manager of the Golden Temple Sulakhan Singh, they have registered a case under Sections 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Section 66-D (punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource) of the Information Technology Act against unidentified persons.
He said their investigation to unearth the racket was on.
The manager told the police that on June 15, two devotees—Sanjay Arora of New Delhi and Shivam Singla of Haryana— came to Saragarhi Niwas on the Heritage Street and claimed that they had booked rooms there.
“The devotees told the staff of the Sarai that the rooms were booked through an online portal. The staff on duty checked the online list and other records, but found no booking under their names,” he said.
The manager said that both Sanja and Shivam then showed their record of payment of ₹ 500 and ₹ 1,000 respectively from their mobile phones. “They had paid the money through an online application, Paytm,” he said.
Sulakhan said, “when employees of the sarai investigated further, it was found that the numbers on which the devotees had paid the money were being shown on the internet for the booking of rooms of Saragari Niwas. Some persons have cheated the devotees on the pretext of their online booking.”
