Hyderabad: The Tukaramgate police on Tuesday arrested the system administrator, an accountant, the secretary, and a former treasurer of the Deccan Club for allegedly siphoning off Rs 1.5 crore over the past three years.
The Deccan Club, which was established in the year 1900, has about 1400 members. Members of the Club have to pay a one-time entrance fee of Rs 3 lakh and a monthly fee of Rs 625 henceforth.
On June 28, 2017, the Tukaramgate police received a complaint from Avinash Gupta, the president of the Club, stating that irregularities had been identified in the accounts of the club for the year 2016-17 and about '40 lakh appeared to have been misappropriated.
A case was booked under the relevant sections of the IPC and an investigation was taken up by the police. After a detailed analysis of bills and records from the past three years, it was revealed that about '1.5 crore had been siphoned off by Asim Kumar Maity, 32, the system administrator; Vanga Manjulatha, 40, an accountant; G. Ramesh Reddy, 63, the secretary; and V. Nagender Babu, the treasurer of the club from 2014 to 2016.
B. Sumathi, deputy commissioner of police North Zone, said, “Ramesh, the secretary, colluded with Asim and Manjulatha and misappropriated club funds to the tune of '1.5 crore over the past three years. Ramesh used his username and password while billing, and Manjulatha and Asim collected cash from members of the club for various services. They also collected money from other billing clerks to be deposited in the Club’s bank account and were allotted individual user IDs to conduct cash and card transactions.”
“Due to his negligence, the accused were able to swindle the Club out of such a large amount. The role of other employees is yet to be ascertained,” said the DCP.
The police recovered '19,69,995 from Asim Kumar and '35,01,594 from Vanga Manjulatha. Those arrested were booked under relevant sections of the IPC and sent to judicial remand.
