Biswabrata Goswami
KRISHNAGAR, 28 MAR: The Nadia district Census staff who has been arrested for forging signatures of higher authorities and withdrawing a few crores of Central government funds meant for the census works had issued over 100 bearer cheques on different occasions for the last few years.
Sources placed in the collectorate said the prime accused Manotosh Karmakar, a contractual staff engaged at the Census section in the office of the district magistrate, Nadia is believed to have started committing crime from the year 2016. Since then, he issued innumerable number of bearer cheques and has withdrawn a few crores of Central funds keeping ‘the authorities in dark’.
“How many cheques were issued has not been ascertained yet but it could be more than 100,” said a senior administrative official.
Today, the Census officer Gobinda Haldar was asked in the Kotwali police station where the investigating officer and other senior police officials quizzed the prime accused and his associate in presence of him.
Manotosh Karmakar was arrested by the Kotwali police for allegedly withdrawing huge amounts of money on different occasions by forging signatures 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dated 23.03.2023) urging it to take necessary action against Karmakar as he forged his signature and has withdrawn a huge amount of money in different occasions from two bank accounts of the Census section.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 police, Karmakar has confessed his crime and mentioned the name of one Mongol Biswas, a Toto driver whom he had issued 17 bearer cheques amounting to the tune of Rs 92 lakhs in the last ten months.
Based on his confession, the Kotwali police also arrested Mongol, a close associate of the prime accused on 25 March. He is also in police remand for three days.
“We suspect that more people are involved in this crime. 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.
According to the sources placed in the district collectorate office, Karmakar has withdrawn a few crores of rupees on different occasions from two PNB accounts. Though, the officers declined to mention the exact amount of money the accused had withdrawn.
The sources also said Karmakar was a permanent staff member 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.
Tags: #NadiaCollectorate #CensusStaff #ForgingSignatures
