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CBI nabs offender in a 20-year-old SBI fraud case. He was declared dead by court
The accused changed his phone number about 10 times and was planning to escape to Sri Lanka by sea route before he was arrested from Tamil Nadu
The Central Bureau of Investigation arrested an offender who had been absconding for the past 20 years, said a press release from the organisation on Monday. V Chalapathi Rao, who was arrested, avoided arrest by frequently changing his identity and location. He was also declared dead by a court.
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The accused changed his phone number about 10 times and was planning to escape to Sri Lanka by sea route before he was arrested from Narsinganallur village in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu on August 4. He was produced before a local court which remanded him till August 16.
20 years of pursuit
In May 2002, the CBI registered a case against Rao, accusing him of cheating the bank out of ₹50 lakhs based on fabricated quotations of electronic shops and fake salary certificates created in the names of his family members and close associates while he was working as a computer operator at SBI Chandulal Biradari Branch in Hyderabad, reported news agency PTI.
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On December 31, 2004, the CBI filed two chargesheets against Rao who had been missing since 2004.
Rao's wife complained to the Hyderabad police after he went missing. The wife, who is also an accused in the fraud case, later moved the civil court to declare Rao dead seven years after he allegedly went missing. An order was passed by a civil court of Hyderabad, subsequently.
In 2007, the accused managed to flee to Salem and married a lady there after changing his name to M Vineet Kumar and also obtained an Aadhar number as well, as per the information gathered by CBI, reported PTI. Through his wife, CBI got the information that Rao was still in touch with his son out of the first marriage.
In 2014, Rao left Salem and reached Bhopal where he worked as a loan recovery agent from where he shifted to Rudrapur in Uttarakhand to work in a school.
The team found out that Rao left Rudrapur in 2016 and moved to an ashram in Verul village, Aurangabad where he changed his name to Swamy Vidhitatmanand Teertha and obtained an Aadhar card card. Rao cheated the ashram out of ₹70 lakh before he moved to Bharatpur (Rajasthan) as Vidhitatmanand Teertha. He stayed there there till July 8, this year before he left for Tirunelveli, where he stayed with one of his disciples.
(with inputs from PTI)
