4 held for Rs 4.54 cr fraud

Benjamin Hmar (54) son of Luia Hmar of Sielmat; Pumkhogin Simte (45) son of Kaizagou of New Lamka Church Road; Research Investigator of DRDA, Lianboi Singson; and receiving Officer of the bank, Oinam Chaoba in custody.

Imphal, October 17 2009: Four persons, including two staffs of the United Bank of India (UBI), Churachandpur Branch and Research Investigator of DRDA, Churachandpur, have been remanded into police custody for fraudulent withdrawal of a sum of Rs 4.54 crore from Multi Sectoral Development Programme (MSDP) fund for 2008-2009 under District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Churachandpur.

They were remanded into police custody after they were produced before a court.

The four persons who the Chief Judicial Magistrate of Churachandpur remanded into police custody were Deputy Manager of the UBI branch, Pumkhogin Simte (45) son of Kaizagou of New Lamka Church Road; Benjamin Hmar (54) son of Luia Hmar of Sielmat; Research Investigator of DRDA, Lianboi Singson; and receiving Officer of the bank, Oinam Chaoba.

According to sources, the authority came to know of the fraudulent withdrawal when the EE of DRDA, Churachandpur, RK Biren went to the bank to withdraw the amount yesterday.

He came to kwown that the deposited amount of the fund was withdrawn using forge signature.

The amount has been withdrawn on six occasions by forging the signature of the EE RK Biren.

The amount was first withdrawn on October 3 using 4 cheques each for Rs 82, 00,000 .

For the second time, Rs 40,00,000 was withdrawn on October 7 while Rs 86,00,000 was withdrawn for the last time on October 14, the source said.

It has also been learnt that there were only two security certificates for the six withdrawals.

The signature of the OC of Churachandpur was found on them.

Later, the signature was also learnt to be fake ones.

An emergency meeting was called on October 15 at the office of the DC, Churachandpur which was attended by the bank manager, deputy manager and head cashier of UBI, Churachandpur branch, SP, SDPO and OC of Churachandpur police department and the executive engineer (EE) of DRDA, Churachanpur R.K.Biren.

[Source: Hueiyen News Service/e-pao.net]