New Delhi, June 27 (IANS): Six people have been arrested for cheating several job seekers across India on the pretext of providing them government jobs under the "Rajiv Awas Yojana" scheme run by the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation, police said on Saturday.

Sulabh Gulati, 23, Samar Malik, 26, Manoj Sharma, 26, Abhishek Sharma, 29, Mohinder Kumar, 29 and Javed Khan, 32 -- all residents of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh-- were arrested from different locations in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) within the last fifteen days.

"They used to entice people to deposit huge amounts in different banks as training fee and other expenses for joining duty by impersonating as senior officers, secretaries and government executives," Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Ravindra Yadav said.

With their arrest, Yadav claimed to have busted a pan India network.

"A reference was received from PMO (Prime Minister's Office) regarding cheating of innocent youths all over India in the name of providing government jobs with Rajiv Awas Yojana," Yadav said.

"The accused were cheating youths all over India by publishing advertisements regarding government jobs in leading newspapers across India, conducting fake interviews of the vulnerable candidates over phones, sending forged appointment letters to such candidates and then inducing them to deposit huge amounts in their bank accounts," he said.

Yadav said that Govind and Gautam, who are yet to be arrested, are the masterminds of the gang who had been cheating people for many years in the name of mobile tower installations and government jobs.