An FIR has been registered at the Ayodhya Police station aainst unknown people on the complaint of the trust’s secretary, Champat Rai

WEB DESK

Unknown fraudsters have withdrawn Rs six lakh from the bank accounts of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra, the trust body that has been tasked with the construction of Lord Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The money was withdrawn fraudulently from the bank accounts, meant for collection of funds for Ram temple construction, using two cloned cheques of Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 3.5 lakh, reported Hindustan Times citing Ayodhya’s deputy inspector general, Deepak Kumar.

A First Information Report (FIR) has been registered at the Ayodhya Police station against unknown people on the complaint of the trust’s secretary, Champat Rai, Kumar said as per the report.

According to the report, the DIG said that the trust authorities have confirmed that the original cheques of the same serial numbers used to withdraw the money are with them.

The fraud came to notice when Champat Rai got a verification call from the bank on September 9 after the third cloned cheque of Rs 9.86 lakh was placed for clearance, said the report quoting the DIG.

Later, the authorities found out that two cloned cheques had been used to withdraw money earlier on September 1 and 3, said Kumar. The cloned cheques contained forged signatures of Rai and another member of the trust, he said.

Following the incident, the FIR has been registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC)’s sections 419 (impersonation) and 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for cheating) and 471 (using forged cheque as original), Kumar reportedly said.

An initial probe into the matter has suggested negligence of bank authorities, as well as the involvement of bank employees, as serial numbers of the cheques were compromised and that allowed fraudsters to prepare the cloned ones, said Kumar according to the report.

The withdrawn amount of money has been transferred to a Punjab National Bank account, Kumar further told the publication.