Biswabrata Goswami
KRISHNAGAR, 26 MAR: Within days of the arrest of the Nadia district census staff who has been accused of forging signatures of the higher authorities and withdrawing a few crores of money from government accounts, the Kotwali police have arrested one Mongol Biswas, a close associate of the accused.
Mongol was produced before the special court in Krishnagar district judge’s court today where the magistrate after hearing pleas remanded him in police custody for three days. Mongol will again be produced before the court on 29 March, a police source said.
According to the police, Mongol, a resident of Dangapara in Krishnagar was a close associate of the prime accused, Manotosh Karmakar and the later had issued bearer cheques in favour of Mongol’s account on different occasions after forging signatures of the higher authorities for the last few months. It has been estimated that Karmakar had withdrawn around 92 lakhs of the Central government funded Census money by using Mongol’s account only.
“During interrogation, Karmakar has confessed that he had issued cheques in favour of Mongol’s account after forging signatures. It has also been found that Karmakar had issued 17 such cheques to him,” said an investigating police officer.
“We suspect that more people are involved in this crime. Even we are not ruling out of the involvement of bank employees in this crime,” the police officer said on condition of anonymity.
The police officer also said Mongol was a Toto vehicle driver and he used to work in favour of him.
Manotosh, contractual staff engaged at the Census section in the office of the district magistrate, Nadia was arrested by the Kotwali police for allegedly withdrawing huge amount of money in different occasions by forging signature of the Census officer and the Additional District Magistrate (Dev) on 24 March. He is now in police remand for five days.
The Census officer, Gobinda Haldar lodged an FIR with the Kotwali police (Memo No – 38/Census/Nadia, dated 23.03.2023) urging it to take necessary action against Karmakar as he forged his signature and has withdrawn a huge amount of money in different occasions from two bank accounts of the Census section.
Hours before the arrest, the Kotwali police were asked to seal the census section as the accused was found apparently guilty by the census officer.
According to the sources placed in the district collectorate office, Karmakar has withdrawn a few crores of rupees in different occasions from two PNB accounts. Though, the officers declined to mention the exact amount of money the accused has withdrawn.
The sources also said Karmakar was a permanent staff and worked in different sections. He retired in 2012 and since then he has been engaged as a contractual staff in the census section.
During his tenure as a government employee, Karmakar was a very influential leader of the CPI-M backed state government employees’ union – Coordination Committee.
Many employees in the collectorate raised questions about how a retired person could work as a contractual staff member for over 10 years and how the authorities were unaware when a government bank account was attached to their mail and phone number.
Additional District Magistrate (General) Mr Krishnava Ghosh said that an allegation had been made against the accused staff member who reportedly forged signatures of OC, Census, and ADM (Development) and withdrew a large amount of money from two government accounts. Following the revelation, an FIR was lodged with the Kotwali police who will conduct a probe into the matter. He also stated that it was too early to comment on the matter.
Tags: #NadiaCensusStaff #Forging #KotwaliPolice
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