Trans Fitness Gym at Chhaoni in Nagpur

The owner of Trans Fitness Junction gym, situated at Chhaoni in Nagpur, has been booked by Sadar Police for allegedly duping his business partner of Rs 30 lakh. Based on the complaint by the business partner Vinu Paul (50), Sadar Police have booked the owner Amit Rajput (35) under sections 420, 403 and 34 of the IPC.

As per the police, Paul (a resident of Byramji Town) and Rajput (a resident of Nelson Square) started the gym together in Chhaoni in 2006. The two even had an agreement together.

Paul told Nation Next: “The building the gym operates from is owned by my father. I entered into a partnership with Rajput wherein he was to share the profits from the gym with me. Everything went smoothly till 2017 after which he stopped sharing the profits. He even stopped paying the maintenance of the building.”

Paul alleged that instead of depositing the money earned from the gym into the gym account, Rajput started depositing the money into his personal and his mother’s bank account.

Paul added: “When COVID pandemic started, I did not ask Rajput for money as even I knew that business was bad. Recently, when gyms started operating again, I asked him to start giving the money as business had resumed. Rajput told me that there were no profits to which I told him that he should close the gym.

One day, I sent a colleague of mine to his gym on the pretext of getting admission at the gym. Rajput told my colleague to deposit money into his mother’s account. It’s then that I realised that he was siphoning money.”

Paul said that he had duped of Rs 30 lakh till now by Rajput. He apparently confronted Rajput and tried to resolve the dispute amicably. When the dispute could not be resolved, Paul approached Sadar Police in August 2021. The police booked Rajput recently after investigating the case. Further investigations are still on.