Ram Mandir construction trust duped of Rs 6 lakh, FIR registered

Shri Ram
Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, the account which handles the collection of money
for the Ram temple construction in Ayodhya, was defrauded of Rs 6 lakh,
Ayodhya’s deputy inspector general, Deepak Kumar, said on Thursday.

According to
media reports, the fraudsters used cloned cheques of Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 3.5 lakh, to dupe the trust. The cheques were deposited in the bank for clearance on September 1 and September 3.

Later, on
the complaint of the trust’s secretary, Champat Rai, a First Information Report
(FIR) was registered.

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“A police
team is probing the money trail to trace the fraudsters and people involved in
compromising the trust bank account details to unearth the racket involved the
crime,” Deepak Kumar was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times, adding that the
amount withdrawn was transferred to a Punjab National Bank account.

Media
reports state that ‘authorities have confirmed original cheques of the same
serial numbers, that were used to withdraw the money are with them’.

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The scam came
to the fore when Champat Rai got a verification call from the bank when a third
cloned cheque of Rs 9.86 lakh was deposited for clearance.

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).