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Two suspects have been booked for allegedly duping a city resident of Rs 25 crore on the pretext of settling a land dispute in Faridabad by posing as grievance redressal officials on the CM Window portal, police said on Tuesday.

Police said the victim met the suspects in Chandigarh last year. He had gone there to submit documents at the Department of Town and Country Planning (DTCP) headquarters, as he wanted to free his 12-acre plot from the lawsuit.

Investigators said the prime suspect assured the victim, Praveen Kumar, 38, that his complaint would be resolved within 10 days. He said he was connected to ministers and top officials in the Haryana government while handling complaints on the CM Window portal. However, the suspects demanded Rs 25,000 to get the job done. Police said the prime suspect arrived in the city on May 20 last year and collected Rs 15,000 from Kumar, who is a resident of Block C in Palam Vihar.

According to the police, the victim claimed that the suspects later asked him to pay the remaining amount, and then he paid Rs 10,000 after two days. The victim alleged that the duo had said that his problem would be solved from Chandigarh itself and a date would be fixed for the resolution of the complaint, investigators said. They said that Kumar's complaint was never discussed in Chandigarh, but the suspects kept assuring him that it would be resolved at the earliest.

According to the police, the suspects eventually threatened Kumar and even said they would kidnap his children if he repeatedly pressured them. Realizing that he had been cheated, Kumar filed a written complaint at the office of the police commissioner in Gurugram. An FIR against the suspects was registered under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at the Palam Vihar police station on Monday evening, police said.

Inspector Parveen Kumar, officer in charge of Palam Vihar police station, said they are investigating the case. “We have issued notices to both the suspects and the complainant and asked them to come to us with documents so that we can take necessary action,” he added.