Srinagar: At least 25 employees of the news portal Jazzbaat-24, which operates in Jammu and Kashmir under the banner of India Scanner News Network Pvt Ltd, were allegedly duped by the company's owner, Nilanjan Dasgupta, and associates after the company shut down without paying the employees' five-month salaries.
According to staff, the owner claimed that his company was very successful because it operated in eight different Indian states, including Delhi and Kolkata. He allegedly duped the employees into believing they had landed a position with a very profitable company that was about to go satellite.
"Dozens of people were hired to work for the said company which later turned out to be entirely fake and were scammed into working without getting paid. Jazzbaat-24 started with a Facebook page and a weekly newspaper which was getting published without an RNI Number," employees alleged.
"The operations of the company were officially closed down on August 9, 2022, after receiving a letter attested by Nilanjan DasGupta on the official WhatsApp group. The owner of the company Nilanjan DasGupta was arrested in some other case on March 9, 2022 after he was bailed out he never returned to the organisation but assured the employees to continue the work, but the employees were never paid," they alleged.
According to the employees, the company stopped paying the employees in February. They started paying after a month’s gap and finally completely stopped paying the employees since April 2022, in the meantime the employees were spending their own money to run the organization.
An employee of the said company (name withheld) alleged the company has provided him with some cheques which would clear the pending dues but the cheques were fake as well as the account’s balance was nil.
Another employee (who wished not to be named) alleged “It all started on March 9 when some people came to our workplace claiming that the owner has looted them and is not reverting to their calls or messages.”
“Even the police from the Police Station Nishat got involved, but we continued working,” they said.
When tried to contact Nilanjan Gupta he did not respond to calls.
