Jammu: The Jammu Crime Branch has arrested five persons, including a bank officer and a fake district horticulture officer, in a multi-crore J&K bank loan scam.
Senior Superintendent of Police Crime Jammu Benam Tosh said that a case was registered on a written complaint lodged by Chief Manager S&C Division, Zonal Office J&K Bank Jammu, Mohammadd Shakeel, wherein he alleged that Saleem Yousuf Bhatti, who was a contractual employee with IWMP Poonch and others, had activated the inactive accounts of the Watershed Committee at Branch Lassana, Surankote Poonch.
The accused got the nomenclature of the accounts changed, issued fake salary certificates and confirmation letters to different non-existing employees, and managed to get personal loans, cash credit loans, car loans etc. by posing themselves as government employees, he said.
The SSP said that the accused also managed to open fraudulent government accounts at the branch office Mendhar and the branch office Bus Stand Mendhar, adding, “They firstly deposited money through different banks and branches in the accounts of the Watershed Committee and the fake accounts opened by them, issuing fake authority letters instructing the branches to disburse and credit the salary in the individual accounts of the accused persons.”
He, however, identified the arrested accused persons as the then J&K Bank Manager (Scale-II) Branch Rajouri Jatinder Singh (now demoted) of Narwal Bala Jammu, fake District Horticulture Officer, Mohd Kabir of Fatehpur Poonch, fake Social Mobiliser IWMP Poonch, Mohd Zafeer Khan of Narol Mendhar Poonch, fake Horticulture Technician-II in Water Shed RDD Poonch, Zafar Iqbal of Ari Mendhar, Poonch and fake Horticulture Technician-I in IWMP RDD Poonch, Mohd Shakeel of Nowshera, Rajouri.
“The accused persons managed to fraudulently obtain loans amounting to Rs 5 crore approximately from the different branches of J&K Bank, thereby causing huge wrongful loss to the bank,” he said.
The SSP Tosh further confirmed that while conducting an investigation of the case, the Crime Branch succeeded in arresting five more accused wanted in the case, and the investigation is in progress.
