A 26-year-old youth was arrested on Thursday by Bonei police for allegedly stealing a bank cheque and transferring Rs80,000 to his account.
Sources said that members of Barghat Village Committee, Tikayatpali, had gone to the Soil Conservation Office at Bonei for some work on August 11. While holding a discussion with the officials, the members had kept their committee cheque book (of SBI, Tikayatpali) on the table.
Taking advantage of this, one Madam Mohan Mohapatra, who works under a contractor, had discreetly stolen a cheque from the book which had been signed by two committee members. After stealing the cheque, he also signed the fake signature of Assistant Soil Conservation Officer to withdraw the amount from bank. Then he deposited the cheque at Bargarh Padmapur SBI and got Rs 80000 transferred to his own SBI account.
The members had no inkling about this till they came to know that Rs 80000 had been transferred to Madan’s account. Then, they started searching for Madan, who had, by then, already absconded. However, they noticed and caught hold of Madan at Maulpada and handed him over to Bonei police on Thursday.
“We have arrested the accused. He has confessed to committing the crime. We will forward him to court on Thursday evening,” Bonei police station IIC GC Sahu said.