Donyi Polo Airport job racket busted: Con husband-wife arrested

Reported by Marina Dai

Arunachal Pradesh police busted a job racket and arrested a husband and wife duo who were duping people by falsely promising them job at the recently inaugurated Donyi Polo Airport.

The accused have been identified as Subhashish Sumitra, a resident of Barrackpore in West Bengal, and Mambi Banerjee, who is the wife of Subhashish.

The arrests were made by the Special Investigation Team on December 7, 2022.

Since the announcement of the opening of the newly built Donyi Polo Airport, a gang of scammers has been operating a bogus job scam in which over 100 youths from the state have fallen victim and lost money, said SIT SP Rohit Ranbir Singh.

They mostly targetted poor people and extorted money for uniforms, gate passes, and making jobs permanent.

They also created fake appointment letters with logos of the Airport Authority of India and stamps of the Legislative Assembly of Arunachal Pradesh. The appointment document represents employee identity, joining date, designation and salary pay, duty hours, etc.

SIT SP Rohit Ranbir Singh said that the case first came to light on November 4 after a written complaint was filed by one Surjyaditya Bannerjee of Itanagar.

The complaint stated that job advertisements for the airport had been published on Facebook. Even phone numbers were given in the ad based on which people followed up and got swindled of their hard-earned money.

The husband-and-wife duo who seemed to be the scam’s masterminds were successfully arrested from West Bengal by the Special Investigation Team after persistent efforts.

Copy edited by Lipika Roy