AGRA: Kasganj police on Monday arrested a man who was the gold appraiser for Canara Bank’s Sidhpura branch there and was accused of fraudulently withdrawing over Rs 2 crore from the bank by taking gold loans in the name of local farmers.Rahul Dev from Pantnagar , a jeweller by profession, was booked under IPC sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document).Rajkumar Singh, station house officer of Sidhpura said, “Dev, who was working as gold appraiser for the bank forged documents of local farmers, and in connivance with bank employees duped the bank of over Rs 2 crore.”Singh added, “Along with Dev, we have booked former Sidhpura branch manager Manoj Kumar Singh, as we believe that without the latter’s knowledge the scam could not have happened. Currently he is absconding.”A police officer said, “On the pretext of increasing the limit for Kisan credit card , Dev took documents and passbooks of local farmers. Without informing them, he applied for gold loans in the bank and deposited the yellow metal. Since he was the official appraiser for the bank, no authority raised any objection and granted the loan. His actions were probably ignored by bank officials.”Speaking to TOI, lead district bank manager Mahesh Prakash said, “The scam came to light after the bank audit team found suspicious yellow metal instead of gold in one of the accounts. There are total 162 accounts on which loan were sanctioned, out of which 100 have been inspected. The audit team found 47 suspicious accounts in which yellow metal was deposited instead of gold.”Prakash added, “The paperwork for the loan is absolutely correct and there is no flaw. While questioning, the accused bank manager showed us all the records. It’s not possible that loan taken on such large number of farmers was not in the knowledge of the account holders.”“We are probing the matter to first ascertain the actual loss. Later, we will further investigate as who were involved in the scam and what were the loopholes,” Prakash said.It’s important to note that the accused bank manager who police said is absconding is currently posted in one of the bank’s branches in Aligarh district

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