Aurangabad: A Doordarshan employee was among three booked by city police on charges of duping a city-based cement trader and builder on the pretext of getting him appointed chairman of the Maharashtra Haj Committee.The trader moved the Economic Offences Wing recently after he failed to get the appointment. A preliminary probe has led to the booking of the three under Sections 406 and 420 of the IPC under Begumpura police station.EOW assistant inspector Amol Satodkar told TOI that the preliminary probe found that one of three was an employee of public service broadcaster Doordarshan.The complaint was lodged by 43-year old Mohammed Arefuddin Siddiqui, a resident of Jaisinghpura in the city. He said that he came in touch, through a common friend, with a cleric hailing from Bhopal who assured him of help in getting an advertisement for his firm on Doordarshan.Siddiqui contacted the Doordarshan employee, based in Delhi, who along with his accomplice visited the city in January 2015. A detailed discussion occurred about the advertisement policy of the national channel at a hotel in Bhadkal Gate.Siddiqui later accompanied the men to Mumbai, where too he was introduced to influential people including bureaucrats and police officers. The suspects boasted to him about contacts in Maharashtra government and claimed he could, with their help, bag the post of chairman of the Maharashtra Haj Committee. The men demanded Rs 33 lakh to get him the coveted post.The trader fell for their bragging and parted with Rs 23 lakh on March 12, 2015. The remaining Rs 10 lakh, it was agreed, would be paid once the trader had received his appointment letter as Haj Committee chairman.Siddiqui said that on May 12, 2015 the suspects demanded Rs 15 lakh – after much persuasion, they agreed to settle for Rs 10 lakh, which was handed over by Siddiqui’s son at the key suspect’s Delhi residence.Three years later, Siddiqui had still not received an appointment letter, and he reached out to police to get his money back. The matter was handed over to the EOW. Siddiqui established his case by presenting a series of text messages that he had exchanged with the three, including the Doordarshan employee.

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