New India bank fraud: Police custody for 2 accused till April 1

MUMBAI: Court extends police remand of two accused in ₹122 crore embezzlement case from New India Cooperative Bank, linked to BJP's Hyder Azam.

MUMBAI: An additional chief judicial magistrate court on Friday extended the police remand of two persons arrested in connection with the alleged embezzlement of ₹122 crore from the cash reserves of New India Cooperative Bank. This was after police told the court that one of the accused – Javed Azam, younger brother of BJP’s former Maharashtra secretary Hyder Azam – had opened 10 electronic showrooms in Bihar from the proceeds of crime and they were in the process of seizing the stores.

The alleged embezzlement came to light during an audit at the bank’s headquarters in Prabhadevi by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials (HT Photo)

Additional chief judicial magistrate RB Thakur of the Esplanade metropolitan magistrate court extended the police custody of Azam and Rajeevranjan Pandey alias Pawan Gupta till April 1, while two other accused, Kapil Dedhia and Unnanathan Arunachalam, were remanded in judicial custody for 14 days.

Azam had received ₹18 crore out of the siphoned amount from Hitesh Mehta, former general manager (accounts) of the bank and the main accused in the case, and Arunachalam, and he had helped the latter hide when he was on the run, police told the court.

“We are in the process of raiding 10 electronic stores named ‘Javed Digital Duniya’ started in Bihar in September 2020 by Azam using the proceeds of crime. We will be seizing them soon,” an officer from Mumbai police’s economic offences wing told the court.

“Mehta and Unnanathan had paid around ₹15 crore to Pandey as he had told them that he would invest the cash in corporate social responsibility funds, which would ensure huge profits. But Pandey has been claiming that he paid the amount to Ajay Rathod and Pawan Jaiswal,” the officer said in court.

On Friday, Mehta was administered a brain mapping test at Kalina Forensic Laboratory and the report is expected next week.

The alleged embezzlement came to light during an audit at the bank’s headquarters in Prabhadevi on February 12, when Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials found ₹122 crore missing from the cash vault. Later that evening, Mehta, an employee of the bank since 1988, met RBI officials and confessed that he had been siphoning off the cash from the bank’s Prabhadevi and Goregaon branches since the pandemic.