Owner of a private company, Smoke Multiproject Private Limited, which operated from a commercial building in Mahatma Gandhi Road, duped several youths of the State Capital and fled with at least Rs 1crore extracted on pretext of providing jobs.

An irate mob broke open the lock of the company’s office on Tuesday and looted furniture, decorative items and electronic gadgets in a fit of rage. Policemen from Hindpiri Police Station rushed to the spot  and pacified the infuriated youths.

“A company called Smoke Multiproject Private Limited duped around two lakh people. The name of the operator of the company is Kumar Shanu alias Ankit. He demanded Rs 2,000 to Rs 6,000 from each of his clients,” said an applicant Sanjay Sahu, a resident of Doranda, Ranchi.

Another client of the company, Ajay Kumar, a resident of Gandhinagar, Ranchi said that Smoke Multiproject Private Limited was opened around two months ago. “This company used to take money from people in the name of data entry. Initially, the company said that it will give Rs 3,000 for filling 140 pages in a week. In lieu of this, the company charged Rs 1200 as a registration fee,” he added.

“Then the company increased the registration fee to 3000 in which the company had offered to pay Rs 6,000 for filling 280 pages in 15 days. In the initial days, some people were given money.

Then as the number of people started increasing, the company increased the registration fee to Rs 6,000 and vanished after extracting crores from people,” said Kumar.