Freedom 251: It has long been assumed that Freedom 251 is just aother for of Scam where the end users would be finally cheated. Yet people knowing all this still invested Rs 251 into the mobile company of getting cheap phone for just Rs 251.

After the arrest of Mohit Goel, Director of Noida-based Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd, Ghaziabad police said they were searching for four more directors of the company that launched the world's cheapest smarphone.

Mohit Goel was detained after an FIR was filed by Ghaziabad based Ayam Enterprises, alleged that Ringing Bells defrauded it of Rs 16 lakh.

The police is in hunt for other directors Dharna Garg (Mohil Goel's wife), Anmol Goel , Ashok Chadha and Sumit Kumar named in the FIR.

As the news of Mohit Goel arrest emerged, several other distributors reached the police station, describing their suffering at the hands of the company, the official said.

Ayam Enterprises claimed it was persuaded by Goel and other company officials to take up the distributorship of Freedom 251 which costed less that $4 smartphones in November 2015.

In India, each Freedom 251 phone was to cost Rs 250. Ayam  said We paid Rs 30 lakh to Ringing Bells through RTGS on different occasions. But it delivered us product worth Rs 13 lakh only.

As per Akshay Malhotra, one of the distributors of Ayam Enterprises, Goel contacted him two years ago to become the clearing and forwarding (C&F) agent for freedom products. He paid Rs 30 lakh to Goel in four installments but Goel did not supply the consignment even after the promised delivery time lapsed.

After much persuasion, Goel supplied the first consignment of mobile phones, called 'Freedom 251, worth Rs 8 lakh. Ayam Enterprises returned them to Ringing Bells, After finding them substandard in quality.

Ayam Enterprises was later forced to accept power banks and LFD bulbs from Goel in place of mobile phones, said Malhotra.

FIR was registered under sections 420, 406, 467, 468, 471 and 120 (b) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), The police arrested Goel from his residence at ATS Towers at Indirapuram on Thursday. A report in a leading news portal on the telecommunication and technology industry, claimed in December that Ringing Bells owners had shut down the company and opened a new firm.

After announcing that it had delivered 5,000 Freedom 251 smartphones to customers in July last year 2016, Ringing Bells said it would deliver another 65,000 more to those who had booked the device in cash on delivery mode.

After that, no further detail has been shared. The company has since moved into making TVs and other smartphones, burying the Freedom 251 dream. The company said in mid-February last year it had planned to deliver 2.5 million handsets before June 30, 2016.

Ringing Bells received little over 70 million registrations before its payment gateway got crashed. It was said to be the world's cheapest phone made a sudden splash across the globe. Initially Doubts were raised over Ringing Bells' handset after some experts said no smartphone could be manufactured for less than Rs 2,000.