TWO held for siphoning off pension amount

Visakhapatnam: The city police arrested two persons including junior accountant of divisional sub-treasury office for their involvement in Rs 1.4 crore fraud (siphoning off government public money in pension scam) at the Seethammadhara divisional sub-treasury office here on Friday and recovered Rs 76.15 lakh from the duo.

The cops have launched man-hunt for three more persons in the case and investigation is on to establish the alleged nexus between the junior accountant and other staff of sub-treasury office. The arrested have been identified as junior accountant Y Venkata Narasinga Rao,35, alias Narasinga Rao and his friend Garikina Santhosh Kumar,34, both are native of Vizag city.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Visakha-North, M Ravindranath Babu said Narasinga Rao has joined as junior accountant in Seethammadhara sub-treasure office on compassionate grounds in March 2016 after sudden demise of his father Y Lova Raju (ASI) and his mother Y Varalakshmi has been taking pension every month from past two years under Seethammadhara STO limits.

Craze for easy money, Narasinga Rao has stolen user IDs and passwords of his colleagues at the sub-treasury office and Rao fraudulently deposited Rs 50.66 lakh (public money) in his mother Varalakshmi’s bank account in two phases (Rs 16 lakh in May and Rs 34.65 lakh in August) citing pension arrears along with regular pension.

During the random verification of pension payments to beneficiaries, Assistant Treasury Officer KS Venkateswara Rao unearthed the irregularities in payment of pension and found that one of the pensioners Y Varalakshmi’s bank account was credited Rs 50.66 lakh by the sub-treasury office and he lodged a complaint with Dwaraka police station in Vizag on October 20.

Similarly, the Dwaraka police station received one more complaint from Assistant Treasury Officer (in-charge) VL Subhashini on November 8 that two pensioners Garikina Masen Rao’s bank account was credited with Rs 54 lakh and K Ramulamma’s bank account was credited with Rs 36.19 lakh.

Based on the complaints, the Dwaraka Police investigated the case and with the concrete clues, they nabbed Venkata Narasinga Rao who is the mastermind behind the scam. The investigation also revealed that Venkata Narasinga Rao fraudulently credited his friend Garikina Santhosh Kumar’s father Masen Rao’s account and later they shared the money.

“We have recovered Rs 64.54 lakh in cash and Rs 11.61 lakh of bank balance besides one car and bike from Narasinga Rao and Santhosh Kumar,” says DCP Ravindranath Babu. As the pensioners who received the excess money didn’t inform to treasury officials, we have registered cases against them and investigation is on to recover the remaining money, he added.