Fake hotel portals target Puri Rath Yatra devotees
Odisha Police‘s crime branch has blocked at least 46 fake websites involved in duping tourists on the pretext of providing hotel accommodation and other facilities for visits to Puri during the annual Rath Yatra, scheduled to begin on July 16, officials said on Monday. The crime branch’s cyber cell swung into action after receiving several complaints from visitors who were allegedly cheated while booking hotel rooms online, officials said.
In one complaint lodged at a police station in Puri, a tourist from Rajasthan alleged that he had booked three rooms for his family through a website. However, on reaching the hotel, he found that no such reservation had been made in his name. “In the last week alone, cyber experts of the crime branch detected 46 fake websites involved in cheating tourists. The highest number — 11 websites — were blocked on June 27, while 15 such portals were taken down between June 20 and June 22,” a senior police officer said.
“We have launched round-the-clock cyber patrolling to identify and block fake hotel booking websites targeting tourists visiting Puri during the Rath Yatra,” the officer said. The officer said fraudsters were taking advantage of the annual festival, which draws lakhs of devotees to Puri. “They have created fake portals offering attractive room tariffs, VIP darshan and other services, while demanding advance payments from unsuspecting visitors,” the officer said.
Explaining the modus operandi, the officer said the fraudsters typically cloned websites of legitimate hotels or created lookalike portals that appeared prominently in online search results. Crime branch sources said nearly 30 tourists lost nearly Rs.5 lakh in the past one year to such scams during online hotel bookings in Odisha.
Last year, Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA), Puri, had also approached the crime branch seeking action against fraudulent websites that impersonate the shrine’s guesthouse booking facilities.
In a written complaint, the SJTA alleged that the fake websites closely resembled the temple’s official booking portals, making it difficult for devotees to distinguish between genuine and fraudulent sites.
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