BHOPAL: Bairasia police have booked eight persons including panchayat secretary and sarpanch of Karhaiyachanvar gram panchayat for usurping over Rs 49.85 lakhs by releasing death compensation to people who are alive.
A complaint was lodged by the Bairasia administration after they found that the sarpanch, secretary, sarpanch coordination officer and four others were involved in cheating villagers by preparing false death certificates of alive persons.
Sarpanch of Karhaiyachanvar gram panchayat Balram Gurjar, Secretary Omprakash Sharma, Panchayat Coordination officer and Nodal Officer Hukumchand Batham, Panchayat Coordination officer Umashankar Tripathi along with four other villagers Mahesh Kumar, Bhagvan Singh, Pramod Vishwakarma and Deep Singh were involved in the fraud.
The bank account numbers of four villagers were updated for all death claims in the fraud. In the fraud bank account number of these four villagers were updated which was part of the fraud. After the amount was received it was distributed among the accused.
An inquiry was conducted on the instructions of district collector Tarun Pithode. CEO Zila Panchayat Satish S Kumar ordered to CEO Janpad Panchayat Barasia to lodge a complaint for registering FIRs against the fraudsters.
In the investigation police found that between June 9, 2018 and December 29, 2019 the accused including four villagers, sarpanch, secretary and two-panchayat coordination officer colluded to usurp Rs 49.85 lakh from the state’s exchequer. A case has been registered under the relevant sections.
