Bhubaneswar: Since December 2019, Payal Mohapatra, a 27-year-old accountant working with a top private engineering university in Odisha would often visit two banks situated on the campus of the university with the money deposited by the students. Instead of depositing the money in the bank accounts of the university, she would deposit a part of it in her own account till last month when the officials at the CV Raman Global University on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar found out the truth.
Mohapatra, a post-graduate who has been working at the university since 2017 at a salary of ₹8,000 a month was found to have siphoned off ₹97 lakh, of which she had transferred ₹50 lakh to her boyfriend Vikas Kumar, a Jharkhand-based engineering graduate, who had passed out from the same university.
Commissionerate Police officials in Bhubaneswar, who arrested Mohapatra and Vikas Kumar, said since December 2019, Mohapatra would visit the branches of HDFC Bank and Union Bank in the campus of CV Raman Global University with wads of currency notes for depositing the same in the official bank accounts.
“But instead of depositing the money in the university’s official account, she would deposit a large part of it in her own bank accounts through challan. When asked about the deposits, she would often confuse her superiors. They too, did not care to find out if she was actually depositing the money nor did the bank staff who could have asked questions about the large deposits in her account considering her modest salary,” said Rajat Ray, assistant commissioner of police in Khandagiri zone.
Of the ₹97 lakh that she siphoned off, Mohapatra allegedly transferred at least ₹50 lakh to her boyfriend Vikas Kumar through UPI, most of which was spent on online gambling. Mohapatra also went holidaying with her family to Srinagar with the money that she had siphoned off.
{{/usCountry}}Of the ₹97 lakh that she siphoned off, Mohapatra allegedly transferred at least ₹50 lakh to her boyfriend Vikas Kumar through UPI, most of which was spent on online gambling. Mohapatra also went holidaying with her family to Srinagar with the money that she had siphoned off.
{{/usCountry}}The embezzlement was known after the college authorities conducted an audit last month and found out about Mohapatra’s involvement. In the course of the investigation, she confessed to having embezzled the funds.