Lucknow, Jun 15 (IANS): The UP Special Task Force (STF), on Sunday, arrested seven people, including the private secretary of a minister of state, for duping people after promising to award them contracts.

Additional superintendent of police (ASP), STF, Vishal Vikram Singh said 14 people, including some journalists and staff of the Vidhan Sabha secretariat were involved in duping an Indore-based trader, Manjit Singh Bhatia, for a fodder supply contract.

Bhatia was allegedly duped of Rs 9.72 crore by the conmen.

Singh said that more arrests and recoveries were likely in the matter soon.

The accused had easy access to the secretariat and even used a room there as their office, which made people believe that they were capable of awarding government contracts.

The ASP said those arrested were identified as Rajneesh Dixit, who is the private secretary to the minister of state, a contractual class four employee Dheeraj Kumar Dev, Ashish Rai and A.K. Rajeev a.k.a. Akhilesh Kumar (who claims to be a journalist).

Anil Rai, Rupak Rai and Uma Shankar Tewari were arrested later on Sunday night.

He said total of Rs 28.32 lakh was also recovered from the houses of Ashish Rai and.

He said the names of seven more people, including Arun Rai, Monty Gurjar, Santosh Mishra, Amit Mishra, Dil Bahar Singh Yadav as well as home guard Raghubir Yadav and driver Vijay Kumar, who were deployed with officials of the animal husbandry department, had come to light.

Sharing further details, the ASP said the STF was conducting a probe into the complaint of Manjit Singh Bhatia for the past few weeks during which it was revealed that Ashish Rai met Bhatia posing as a deputy director, animal husbandry, in a room at the Vidhan Sabha secretariat.

The STF official said the home guard and the driver and other staff helped Ashish Rai in misleading the complainant and procured Rs 9.72 crore with the promise to provide the contract.

The STF official said they tried to threaten the complainant when he demanded his money back. The accused got an Azamgarh criminal to issue threats to Bhatia.

A FIR was lodged against the accused at the Hazratganj police station on Saturday night when the complainants' allegation was found true during initial investigation.

They have been booked on charges of fraud, forgery, criminal breach of trust, impersonation and criminal conspiracy, as well as Prevention of Corruption Act.

More arrests are likely to be made in the coming day," the official said.