Siliguri Metropolitan Police detained a youth on Tuesday for cheating people on the pretext of arranging their trips to north Bengal.

Sources said two persons from Mumbai and Visakhapatnam filed complaints with the Himalayan Hospitality & Tourism Development Network (HHTDN) – one of the largest associations of tourism stakeholders in north Bengal – alleging that a person who had claimed to be a tour planner, has taken money from them but didn’t eventually arrange their trip.

Rahul Roy, who is based in Rajganj block of Jalpaiguri district and runs a travel house, had taken 3.25 lakhs from Anil Nayak, a resident of Mumbai, to arrange a group trip to Darjeeling and Sikkim. In a similar manner, M. Vittal, who is from Vizag, had informed HHTDN that the same person had taken 1.40 lakhs from him for a trip to similar destinations.

Samrat Sanyal, the general secretary of HHTDN, said they have mailed the complaints to the association on Monday and Tuesday.

“It has been clearly mentioned that Rahul Roy took the money from them and didn’t deliver his service. In fact, these people couldn’t contact him ahead of the trip,” said Sanyal.

The complaints made HHTDN act and they informed Akhilesh Chaturvedi, the commissioner of Siliguri Metropolitan Police. The police acted on the complaint, initiated a probe and a team of Ambari police outpost nabbed Roy.

“Our officers are interrogating him. We are expecting formal complaints from the two persons who have alleged that the suspect has cheated them,” said a police officer.

Sanyal said such fraudsters are maligning the image of all those associated with the tourism industry in this region.