Chandigarh trader nabbed selling fake WeP cartridges

Couple of months back, the Chandigarh market, which is the
prime location of IT trading in north India, was rocked by the news of fake
consumables being sold there. People witnessed major goof-ups in the consumables
manufactured by WeP Peripherals, one of the primary brands in the market.

But unfortunately, because of this kind of an incident taking
place, a lot of doubts were created in the minds of the WeP channel partners
located in Chandigarh. They raised complaints with the company and demanded a
proper investigation into the situation.

When investigated, it was found that it was not one single
company involved in this spurious trade, but a couple of prominent names were
involved in the business. As a result, a professional agency was also involved
in the investigation process and finally, it was possible to nab one of the
culprits involved in the act. The accused was identified as Amit Jain,
Proprietor of Locasa Infosystems, located at Sector 22 of Chandigarh.

When contacted, Ranbir Singh, GM (Northern Zone), WeP
Peripherals Ltd, confirmed the whole thing. He said that there were rumors in
the market of fake WeP consumables–ribbon cartridges for line matrix and dot
matrix printers, as well as print heads for dot matrix printers–being sold at
around 50 percent of the original price.

Finally, based on an FIR already lodged against Locasa, the
local police as per the instructions of the local magistrate at Chandigarh,
conducted a raid on Monday evening. The police seized some fake print heads from
the premises, which were identified by one of the WeP engineers, accompanying
them. He distinguished between the fake and the originals, and his statement was
found satisfactory by the authorities. Jain was arrested and has been refused
any bail and is still behind the bars, till the time of filing this report. He
has admitted his guilt and has also revealed the names of other prominent
traders involved in this business.

However, market sources say that the hub of all these
activities is certainly not Chandigarh, but Delhi, with the manufacturing unit
being based in the capital to support such illegal activities, occurring from
time to time. Now plans are on to locate these units and take suitable action.

As a major initiative to handle such situations in the long run, WeP is
planning to conduct an aggressive education exercise for the resellers, through
mailers, meetings and conferences. Elaborated Singh, "The idea behind the
strategy is to not only enable the resellers to identify between the fake and
original equipment, but also at the same time, refrain them from being directly
or indirectly involved in such illegal acts."

Parinita Baroowa

New Delhi