Former Sasaram EE Kumari Himani arrested in ₹60 lakh embezzlement case

Former Sasaram EE Himani was arrested from her husband and block development officer (BDO) Prashant Kumar Prasun’s residence at Sherghati.

The executive officer (EE) of Bodh Gaya municipal council was arrested on Tuesday in a case of embezzlement or ₹60 lakhs when posted at Sasaram municipal council. After her arrest from Sherghati in Gaya district, she was brought to Sasaram, to be produced before a court on Wednesday, superintendent of police (SP) Ashish Bharti said.

Former Sasaram municipal council official was arrested in a case of embezzlement of government funds in Bihar. (Representative Photo)

Himani was EE of Sasaram municipal council till 2020 and was booked in criminal cases after a probe by district authorities found her involved in gross irregularities and embezzlement of ₹60 lakhs assigned for urban development.

The probe found that Himani and other officials complicit in the alleged fraud had withdrawn the fund against forged master rolls of schemes that had already been completed years ago using MLA local area development fund.

Following the findings, Sasaram’s current EE Abhishek Anand registered two cases against Kumari Himani, junior engineers (JE) Arun Kumar Singh and Mahant Pandey and chairperson Kanchan Devi accusing them of forgery, cheating, criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy in furtherance of common intention under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471, 120 B and 406/34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Himani was arrested from her husband and block development officer (BDO) Prashant Kumar Prasun’s residence at Sherghati. Municipal council chairperson (chief councilor) Kanchan Devi was arrested earlier on June 18 but the two accused JEs were at large.

The urban development department last week suspended former Bhabua EE Anubhuti Shrivastava for alleged embezzlement of crores of rupees. Shrivastava was posted as EE at Hajipur when suspended.