Bengaluru, Jul 26 (IANS): A man was arrested here for duping 45 students of a women's college in Karnataka by posing as a recruiting agent and giving them fake job offers from leading IT firms, police said on Wednesday.

"We arrested Ganesh, 32, on a joint complaint filed by the victims that he took Rs 10,000 from each of them as recruiting fee for job offers that were fake," Bengaluru East Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Nagesh told IANS.

The suspect recently went to K.M. Cariappa Degree College at Madikeri in Kodagu district, about 250km from Bengaluru, and "hired" the victims after campus interviews. He asked them to come to the city for a medical check-up before joining.

When some of the victims who were given job offers on "letterheads" of global IT majors Accenture and Wipro went to the firms to inquire about the joining dates, they were told they were never hired and that the offer letters were fake.

"We were shocked to know that Ganesh had cheated us by giving fake job letters and made us come to Bengaluru for medical tests," said the complaint.

The suspect also told the victims, who were in the final year of degree courses, that they were being "hired" for back-office and call centres jobs in the city.

On learning that her students were cheated, college principal Parvathi Appaiah also filed a complaint with the Madikeri police station against the man for misleading her into permitting campus interviews by showing identity cards and letters from some IT firms that turned out to be fake.