3 youths arrested for withdrawing Rs 35 lakh from IIT

The Delhi police have arrested three youths, including a graduate, for allegedly withdrawing Rs 34.80 lakh from different bank accounts of IIT-Delhi using forged and fabricated cheques.

The Delhi police have arrested three youths, including a graduate, for allegedly withdrawing Rs 34.80 lakh from different bank accounts of IIT-Delhi using forged and fabricated cheques.

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The arrested have been identified as Ajay Kumar Kashyap, Ashu Kumar and Vipin Kumar. According to the investigating officer, the arrested are part of an organised gang which specialises in preparing forged cheques and encashing them through fake bank accounts.

“The gang used to steal genuine cheques from courier services. Then, they would scan those cheques and print the details such as cheque and account number. Later, they would encash the money using the fabricated cheques,” said the officer. According to him, Manoj Tyagi, mastermind of the gang, is still absconding. He used to arrange the cheque papers through his contacts in banks.

Three pistols, including two country-made, 10 live cartridges, 11 mobile phones and some scanned forged cheques of different bank accounts were recovered from them, the police said.

Chhaya Sharma, deputy commissioner of police (south) said that the complainant —MK Gulati, deputy registrar (accounts) of IIT-Delhi — stated that there were illegal withdrawals from the institution’s accounts in Canara Bank and Punjab National Bank. The amount was debited using four forged cheques.

Ashu and Vipin informed the police that they managed to open fictitious accounts with the fake IDs provided by Ajay.