Mohali: Banker arrested for stealing ₹3 crore from customers’ accounts

The accused, Jasvir Singh, 56, a resident of Mullanpur, was booked on Wednesday following a complaint by the bank’s district manager Gurpreet Singh, deployed in Phase 2, Mohali

Police on Thursday arrested an assistant manager of Cooperative Bank in Sialba village, Mohali, for siphoning off around ₹3 crore from the bank accounts of multiple customers.

The accused, according to police, joined the bank as a helper in 2013 and later was appointed as clerk, eventually ascending to the post of assistant branch manager. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The accused, Jasvir Singh, 56, a resident of Mullanpur, was booked on Wednesday following a complaint by the bank’s district manager Gurpreet Singh, deployed in Phase 2, Mohali.

The accused, according to police, joined the bank as a helper in 2013 and later was appointed as clerk, eventually ascending to the post of assistant branch manager.

Mullanpur DSP Dharamvir Singh said the accused was arrested near Sialba. “While the bank initially received multiple complaints from customers regarding theft of ₹62 lakh from their accounts, now more customers are approaching us with complaints and thus, the quantum of the fraud may scale up to several crores. We will soon ascertain if more people are involved in the fraud,” the DSP said.

This is the second such bank fraud in Mohali district in three months.

In February, police had arrested Gaurav Sharma, the manager of Axis Bank in Bansepur, Mullanpur, for stealing over ₹10 crore from customers’ accounts.

On his trail for over a week after complaints from defrauded customers poured in, Mohali police had nabbed the accused near the Nepal border in Uttarakhand.

In the present case, the theft came to fore after the accused was transferred to the Gharuan branch and was replaced by branch manager Tejpal Singh.

On verification, Tejpal noticed that the available cash did not match the amount listed in documents. This led him to discover that the previous assistant manager made fake vouchers and by doing fake signatures, debited money from the accounts of customers.

After a few customers got to know about the fraud, they reached the bank on Wednesday and informed the Mohali SSP, following which case was registered against the accused.

Police officials familiar with the case said the accused was also duped of over a crore by his friend in a property deal.

He facing charges under Sections 381 (theft by clerk or servant), 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of a valuable security), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a fraud document), 420 (cheating) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.