The Assistant Superinten-dent of Post Offices of Sundargarh Division has suspended a post master of Sundargarh district from his job for allegedly siphoning off over Rs3 lakh of deposited money.
Post master loknath Behera (29) and peon Premchand Mahanta of the lalei branch post office under the Khutgaon Post Office under lahunipada block have also been accused of dereliction of duty as they had not delivered ordinary letters, speed post documents, registered letters to concerned persons and kept them in three gunny bags since last two years.
Sources said villagers of lalei had opened their savings bank and RD account in the post office. Recently, when some depositors had gone to the post office to withdraw money, the post master allegedly did not give their money making repeated excuses.
Suspecting his behavior, the depositors went to Khutgaon post office to verify their accounts and found a huge share of their deposited money missing.
The Khutagaon post master reported the matter to the Assistant Superintendent of Post Offices, who went to the lalei branch post office on Friday and conducted enquiry.
During the investigation, it was found that Rs3 lakh public money has been siphoned off by Behera. Besides, 1,336 ordinary letters, six
lIC bonds and 306 speed posts were also recovered in three gunny bags.
“Investigation is on and action will be taken against the peon for dereliction of duty,” said Baliarsingh.