Delhi Police arrests Mohit Goel, maker of world’s cheapest smartphone ‘Freedom 251’

He was arrested by the police on Sunday in an extortion case along with two others.
Delhi Police arrests Mohit Goel, maker of world’s cheapest smartphone ‘Freedom 251’
Delhi Police arrests Mohit Goel, maker of world’s cheapest smartphone ‘Freedom 251’
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Mohit Goel, who suddenly shot into media limelight a couple of years ago for promising to deliver a smartphone at a price of just Rs 251 (less than $4) has been arrested for a case of extortion by the police in Delhi. The case registered this time against Goel, along with 2 other people is for allegedly trying to extort money to take care of a rape case in Delhi.

Goel is more known for the smartphone he promised ‘Freedom 251’, which he said could be owned by practically every Indian if the government also gave a push to the program under its ‘Digital India’ scheme.

If it can be recalled, the phone was to have a quad-core processor offering a clocking speed of 1.3GHz and 1GB RAM with an internal storage of up to 8GB. The phone was meant to be powered by a 1425mAh battery and would have been backed by service centers across India.

Not surprisingly, the phone garnered excitement among people with nearly 30,000 people pre-booking the phone.

He established a company Ringing Bell and claimed that he did deliver 5,000 phones in July 2016 an later over 65,000 phones to customers, some after taking the money and mostly on COD basis at their doorsteps.

But it has been one big story of failed promises and Goel himself getting into legal tangles. First, he was sued by one of the distributors for having collected the money and not delivering the phones. He is said to have owed them around Rs 16 lakh.

Later Goel sued others for having cheated him. He managed to get bail in the case registered against him till his arrest in the extortion case.

Goel still maintains that he is capable of delivering the phones as promised but possibly there are no more takers for his claims.

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