Kingpin of gang held for withdrawing Rs 35 lakh from IIT-Delhi accounts

Police have arrested the mastermind of a gang involved in withdrawing lakhs of rupees from bank accounts of IIT-Delhi. The accused, Manoj Tyagi, hails from Muradnagar, Uttar Pradesh, is a proclaimed offender. He allegedly withdrew a sum of Rs 34.8 lakh from the accounts using forged cheques, police said.

Police had earlier arrested three of Manoj's associates, identified as Ajay Kumar Kashyap, Ashu Kumar and Vipin Kumar, but the kingpin of the gang was on the run. According to officials of the Anti Auto Theft Squad, South District police, Tyagi was arrested outside Tis Hazari Metro station, where he had gone to meet his associates. Tyagi was also arrested in a similar cheating case in 2010 from Burari in Outer Delhi.

The incident was reported after the then Deputy Registrar (Accounts) of IIT-Delhi, M K Gulati approached the police with a complaint stating that illegal withdrawals were being made from the institute's accounts in Canara Bank and Punjab National Bank (PNB). Gulati alleged that on October 19, they were told by Canara Bank that Rs 9.75 lakh was debited from the account of the institute. "They also received statements from PNB that three unauthorised cheques for Rs 9.75 lakh, Rs 7.75 lakh and Rs 7.15 lakh had been debited from their accounts," an officer said.

During questioning, Tyagi confessed that he and his associates opened accounts with fake IDs provided by Kashyap. They collected information on account holders in the said bank and opened their own accounts using forged signatures of original account holders. "While Tyagi and Kashyap would take most of the stolen money, Vipin and Ashu took 10 per cent each," the officer said.

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