Amid the ongoing investigation into the online fraud involving the West Bengal government’s ‘Taruner Swapno’ scheme, the state police has registered a total of 142 cases and arrested at least 38 people, for allegedly siphoning off funds meant for students to purchase tablets.
Additionally, the Kolkata Police has registered 18 cases and arrested more than 10 persons, whereas the number of victims are 127.
The West Bengal police on Thursday arrested two more people in Chopra in the Uttar Dinajpur district, taking the total number of arrests to 40.
“One person, named Mehbub Alam, was arrested from Daspara village panchayat area in a joint operation of Asansol Durgapur Police Commissionerate Cyber Police Station and Chopra Police Station. He has an online cafe in the area,” the police informed.
On the other hand, in a joint operation the Chopra police and Basirhat cyber police station officials arrested another person, Mohammad Yasin Ali, from Chutiakhor village panchayat area. Reportedly, Yasin is a quack by profession.
Chopra has been pinpointed by the police as a hotspot in the online tablet fraud, prompting a series of investigations and arrests. Special police teams from multiple districts have converged on the Chopra police station area to probe various cases.
Recently, three individuals from Uttar Dinajpur were taken into custody in connection with the online tab fraud and additional arrests were made in Siliguri and Malda, with suspects believed to be part of the same gang.
Based on a tip-off, a police team was deployed in Kishanganj, which led to the arrests of three key suspects, Dibakar Das (28), Gopal Roy (28), and Bishal Dhali (23), in Siliguri. They are believed to be pivotal figures in the scam.
“As soon as the investigation started, everyday new names cropped up. This group is conducting operations in several districts. Based on sources, 3 accused were arrested by the SIT from Siliguri last Monday, November 25, during the investigation. Among them was a primary school teacher. On the previous day, Malda police arrested a primary school teacher, Manojit Burman, from Dinhata in Cooch Behar on Sunday,” police said.
The Kolkata Police has formed a Special Investigating Team (SIT) and according to them there are many people involved in this online fraud.
“The SIT has been formed to investigate how the incident happened and the root of this corruption. As soon as the investigation started, one name after another came forward. According to preliminary police findings, the miscreants committed the crime by accessing the school server or stealing the password of the portal,” officials informed.
“The modus operandi of the fraud involves the funds released from the state exchequer for the purchase of tabs, being diverted to the hired accounts from the bank accounts of the genuine beneficiaries,” police explained.
“The money released from the state government exchequer was thus credited to the accounts of fraudsters instead of going to the beneficiary students,” said police.
The state education department, before the puja, had deposited Rupees 10,000 in the accounts of the students of Class 11 and 12 to buy tabs under the Taruner Swapna project.
Nazreen Nahar, a teacher at Kestopur Deshapriya Balika Vidyamandir, filed a complaint last month regarding the disappearance of funds from the accounts of 48 students, and lodged a complaint with the Bidhannagar cyber crime department.
“When the project money started going to the students’ accounts, 48 female students said that their money had not been deposited. They were cheated with Rupees 10 thousand each,” Nazreen told the police, adding that, “The account in which the money was deposited belongs to a state-owned bank in Bihar’s Kishanganj.”
According to sources, the school authorities upload the name, account number, IFSC code of the students on the ‘Banglar Shiksha’ portal under ‘Taruner Sapna’ scheme, so that money is deposited in the students’ accounts. They uploaded it to the ‘Bangla Shiksha’ portal and took a print out of it.”
“When we looked at the uploaded printout for the second time, we saw that the IFSC code of account were same but account numbers were changed,” the sources said.
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