Film producer who runs casino in Goa held for fraud

New Delhi: A Punjabi film producer and his two brothers were arrested for allegedly duping people on the pretext of helping them get loans from banks on the basis

New Delhi: A Punjabi film producer and his two brothers were arrested for allegedly duping people on the pretext of helping them get loans from banks on the basis of bogus properties, the police said on Sunday.

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The accused have been identified as Gourav Sethi alias Golu, 35, Vikram Sethi, 36, and Manish Sethi, 40 — all residents of Delhi. In police records, Gourav Sethi and his brothers were wanted for the last two years and carried a reward of `25,000 each for their arrests.

Police said Gourav had produced two Punjabi films. His first film ‘Watno Door’, released in 2008, didn’t do well at the box office. Later in 2011, he produced ‘Baba Bulleh Shah’, which was not released due to some issues with the distributors.

Ravinder Yadav, joint commissioner of police (crime) said the three men were arrested from Mumbai.

“The case was challenging for us because the accused were living under fictitious identities and kept changing their locations frequently,” Yadav said.

Police said after movies, Gourav went on to become a liaison agent with some banks and started duping people to get loan on commission against bogus properties. In this connection, over a dozen cases were registered against him at various police stations.

In 2014, he was arrested by officers of Lodhi Colony police station and produced in a court, where he was remanded to judicial custody. His brothers, later, helped him flee police custody while he was being taken to Tihar Jail.

“Gourav was being escorted by a constable back to jail by a constable. Near DDA Market Jail Road, his brothers Vikram and Manish, requested the constable to allow them to get Gourav’s signature on a judicial document. As soon as the constable was distracted, the men fled with the prisoner in waiting cars,” Yadav said.

Preliminary investigations revealed that Gourav owned casinos in Panaji (Goa), Colombo (Sri Lanka) and Nepal.

His brother Vikram Sethi was in the finance business,

while Manish was in property business.

The brothers had also planned to leave the country and conduct their business from outside India, police said.