Mohit Goel, the owner of Noida based company Ringing Bells, which launched India's cheapest smartphone at Rs 251 last year, has been detained by Ghaziabad police on allegations of fraud. Ghaziabad Deputy SP Manish Mishra said Mr Goel had been detained for interrogation after an FIR was filed by the owner of Ghaziabad-based Ayam Enterprises alleging that Ringing Bells "defrauded" it of Rs. 16 lakh. In the FIR, Ayam Enterprises has alleged that the company was persuaded by Mr Goel and others from Ringing Bells to take up the distributorship of the Freedom 251 phones in November 2015."We paid Rs. 30 lakh to Ringing Bells through real time gross settlement system on different occasions. But it delivered us product worth Rs. 13 lakh only. Upon follow-up, we could get products plus money totaling Rs. 14 lakh," the company claimed in the FIR.

The owners of Ayam Enterprises also alleged that Mr Goel and others from Ringing Bells had threatened them with life if they asked for the rest Rs. 16 lakh "again and again". Ringing Bells had begun the sale of Freedom 251 handsets, touted as the world's cheapest, on its website in February 2016.However the company landed in a controversy, when a BJP leader Kirit Somaiya registered a case of cheating against the owners ofalleging that the company was running a ponzi scheme to offer smartphones at below their cost of production.The BJP leader had also approached the then telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and telecom regulator, TRAI on the issue.