The Jammu and Kashmir Police Crime Branch has arrested five individuals, including a former manager of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, in connection with an alleged multi-crore loan scam. The case was registered in 2023 following a written complaint by Mohammad Shakeel, the chief manager of the bank’s supervision and control division in Jammu.
The complainant accused Saleem Yousuf Bhatti, a contractual employee of the Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP), Poonch, and others of activating dormant accounts of the watershed committee at the bank’s Lassana branch in Surankote. The accused allegedly altered account nomenclatures, issued fake salary certificates, and created confirmation letters for non-existent employees. They managed to obtain personal loans, cash-credit loans, and car loans by posing as government employees.
In their fraudulent operation, the accused also opened fake government accounts at the bank’s Mendhar and Mendhar Bus Stand branches. By depositing money from various banks into these accounts, issuing fake authority letters, and instructing the bank to disburse salaries, they fraudulently obtained loans worth Rs 5 crore, causing a significant loss to the bank.
Following the investigation, the Crime Branch arrested five individuals: Jatinder Singh, the then manager of the Rajouri branch (now demoted), Mohammad Kabir, Mohammad Zafeer Khan, Zafar Iqbal of Poonch, and Mohammad Shakeel of Rajouri.
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