It may be noted that in almost all cases of frauds -- unscrupulous elements fraudulently encashed instruments belonging to the investors -- that took place in city banks in the past year cheques, demand drafts, dividend orders, etc were reportedly stolen after they were despatched and before they reached the investors.

In the case of the UTI fraud lodged last week, the cheques were issued in July 1998 by UTI through registered post from the Mumbai GPO. And although the Athwalines police is investigating the case, they don't seem to be really bothered to find out from where exactly the dividend orders were actually stolen.

The fallout: three city banks -- the Surat Peoples Cooperative Bank, The Prime Co-operative Bank Limited and the United Western Bank Limited -- were defrauded of lakhs of rupees by bogus clients.

Said a bank official, ``Although there is no denying the fact that banks have erred, appropriate action has been taken against negligent employees. But is the police trying to find out how and from where these cheques are being stolen?''

According to another bank official, the dividend orders could not have been stolen without the complicity of employees of angadias, courier companies and even the postal department.``Is the police actually investigating that angle?'' he questioned.

PI G B Darji of the Athwalines police station stated that for the moment at least, he was involved in questioning of the bank officials for their responsibility in the whole issue. ``It is clear that the cheques were stolen and further investigations will reveal from where and by whom they were stolen,'' Darji added.

Interestingly, the Delhi police arrested one Shrivastava, a former bank employee, who is also reportedly involved in the bank frauds here in the city. According to sources, Shrivastava was suspended from duty after he reportedly siphoned off Rs 5 crores from different banks in the country in the past few years, knowing the loopholes in the system.

``If he (Shrivastava) is involved in the case, we will definitely bring him from Delhi on a transfer warrant,'' Darji stated.

Thus if the police were to systematically investigate the role of people delivering the bank instruments to the investors, it could lead to unearthing of a large-scale racket of stealing and subsequently encashing dividend orders and cheques. And since all the UTI cheques encashed in the city banks belonged to investors residing in UP, it could very well be an organised inter-state racket.