Former postmaster held for Rs 5.6 crore fraud

KOLKATA: The detective department arrested a former postmaster of the Sinthee post office from Kanchrapara for allegedly manipulating electronic data and using forged documents to open 32 fake savings accounts and siphoning off Rs 5.6 crore.
The accused, Kaushik Pal (45), was arrested on Monday and produced in a court where he was taken in police remand. "The accused had siphoned off money from 542 accounts pertaining to different schemes, like the National Savings Monthly Income Account MIS, National Savings Time Deposit Accounts (TD) and National Savings Recurring Deposit Accounts (RD). The accounts belong to 83 customers which were originally closed in the manual ledger," said joint CP (crime) Murlidhar Sharma.
The case, claimed police sources, was lodged originally at the Sinthee police station on October 23. "We had initiated a case under criminal conspiracy along with various sections of cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust by a public servant or by a banker," said Sharma. "We carried out a three-year long investigation to establish the identity of the main accused and collect evidence. For this, we spoke to account holders and carried a forensic audit before we finally identified Kaushik as the main accused," explained an investigating officer.