Four arrested in Delhi for running fake Ayushman Bharat Yojana website, duping thousands

New Delhi: Four people have been arrested for allegedly running a fake Ayushman Bharat Yojana scheme website and duping thousands of people in the name of providing jobs in the national capital, Delhi Police said on Monday.

According to the police, the accused identified as — Umesh (37), Rajat (33), Gaurav (26), and Seema Rani Sharma (33) — took around Rs 300-500 in the name of job registration under the fake scheme from more than 4,200 people.

One laptop, four mobile phones and ATM cards have been recovered from the possession of the accused. The four accused are currently under police custody.

The police said that a case was registered in the matter and an investigation was taken up after a complaint was received from National Health Authority, Ayushman Bharat – Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana at the Cyber Crime Unit of Delhi Police on May 26.

The complaint alleging therein that NHA received a grievance from the public regarding an alleged unscrupulous organisation which, by the means of a website (ayushman-yojana.org) is portraying a false association with PMJAY scheme by adopting terminologies commonly recognised/associated with PM-JAY/NHA, the police said.

Police said that the website advertised 5,116 vacancies across six states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi and Bihar.

“On interrogation, the accused persons revealed that they hatched a conspiracy to dupe people in the name of Ayushman Scheme. In this regard, they first formed a trust in the name of Ayushman Yojana Trust and designed a website impersonating as a genuine government website,” the police said in a statement.

The police said that the accused received payments from people as registration charges for over 5,000 jobs such as ward boy, nurse, lab assistant, pharmacist, and Ayush Mitra under the Ayushman Health scheme.

Efforts are being made to arrest the remaining accused, the police said