Couple who duped 45 Haj pilgrims held

The Kurar police on Saturday arrested a city-based couple for allegedly duping as many as 45 persons on the pretext of sending them to Haj.

The accused have been identified as Haji Shakir Lodha and his wife Yasmeen — owner of a tour and travel agency.

According to the police, the couple were running a travel agency by the name of Al Taiba from a rented apartment in Humaira Park building at Pathanwadi in Malad. The police said the accused had taken money from people and promised them a tour to Haj.

However, they did not make any arrangements for their travel and instead fled from the airport when all the pilgrims had arrived at the airport to leave for Haj on Friday.

The complainant claimed that the accused had neither booked any tickets nor hotel reservations were in place.

"Lodha had told us that everything has been arranged and the flight tickets have also been booked. However, on Friday when we reached the airport, Lodha fled from the spot when we came to know that no flight tickets nor hotel reservations were made in Haj," said Yusuf Parmar, complainant in the case.

"We immediately approached the Kurar police station and lodged the complaint. In our group, there were around 22 persons who had given at least Rs 3 lakh each. When we inquired further we came to know that he had duped 30 other people similarly," Parmar claimed.

"We have arrested the accused and our probe is on to ascertain how many other persons they had duped earlier," said a police officer from Kurar police station.