Prashant Rao Aihole, a resident of Athani and husband of the Belagavi Zilla Panchayat president was arrested by Belagavi district police on the charges of cheating, breach of trust, intimidation and financial misappropriation.
Prashant is the president of the Sri Lakshmi Multi-purpose Credit Society in Athani.
Sanjay Eknath Satpalkar had filed a complaint against Prashant on April 17 alleging that the latter had cheated him to the tune of Rs 2 lakh in the pretext of giving a site through his Shri Mahalaxmi Multi-Trade Distribution Pvt Ltd in 2012, reports the Times Of India.
SP Sudheerkumar Reddy stated in a release that sufficient documents had been collected to prove the complicity of the accused in the crime before taking him into custody.
The society also faces allegations of collecting deposits from the public and not returning them on maturity. Some depositors have complained that Prashant had allegedly collected money on the pretext of distributing housing sites in Athani, and failed to do so.
In complaints filed to the Athani police earlier this month, depositors complained that the accused had collected money from more people than he could distribute sites for.
They also accused him of buying agricultural land but not getting converted it into non-agricultural land, reports the Hindu.
A few months ago, a group of depositors had staged a dharna in front of the zilla panchayat and tried to gherao Asha Aihole, ZP president.
The police should take a serious and apolitical action in this case. It should not be a case of arresting the culprit and letting him free owing to his political connections. Many defence personnel are victims and have lost their hard earned money to anti social element like him.