new delhi a 58yearold civil engineer was arrested for allegedly duping people on the pretext of investing in real estate police said on wednesdaysanjay chawla a resident of gurugram had cheated 53 people around rs 9 crore police saidaccording to a complaint adel landmarks ltd had in march 2011 made a prelaunch of a project named cosmo court which was to come up at sector 86 in gurugram an officer saidthe firm and its representatives misled the investors that it has already acquired 17 acres of land and obtained the licences to start the project the officer saidthey urged the complainants to start making payments for bookings for the project in the prelaunch stage stating that it was very nominal at this stage and the rates would be double once the project is officially launched police saidthe company started accepting booking amounts from the investors much before the necessary approvals were obtained from the authoritythe project was abandoned and the amount was not returned the officer saidinvestigation revealed that chawla was one of the directors and the authorised signatories in the companyhe was arrested on monday and on released on bail later as per the direction of a court additional commissioner of police eow raj kumar singh saidchawla used to convince most of the customers to invest their money police addedearlier sumit bharana and hem singh bharana who were promoters of this project had been arrested in this case police said