Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 18: The Jammu and Kashmir Police’s crime branch has apprehended five individuals, including a former manager of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, related to an alleged multi-crore loan scam, as reported by the agency today.
The case was initiated in 2023 following a formal complaint from Mohammad Shakeel, chief manager of the bank’s supervision and control division in Jammu.
The complaint detailed allegations that Saleem Yousuf Bhatti, a contractual worker for the Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) in Poonch, along with others, activated inactive accounts of the watershed committee at the bank’s Lassana branch in Surankote.
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The suspects allegedly altered the nomenclature of the accounts, produced fake salary certificates and confirmation letters for non-existent employees, and successfully acquired personal loans, cash-credit loans, and vehicle loans by pretending to be Government staff, according to a spokesperson from the crime branch.
Furthermore, the accused opened fraudulent Government accounts in the bank branches at Mendhar and Mendhar Bus Stand.
They initially deposited funds from various banks into both the watershed committee accounts and their fabricated accounts, issued counterfeit authority letters to instruct branches to distribute and credit salaries into their personal accounts, thus fraudulently securing loans totaling Rs 5 crore from various Jammu and Kashmir Bank branches, resulting in significant wrongful losses for the bank.
Continuing their investigation, the crime branch detained five suspects — Jatinder Singh (now demoted), previously the manager (scale-II) of the bank’s Rajouri branch, along with impersonators Mohammad Kabir, Mohammad Zafeer Khan, Zafar Iqbal from Poonch, and Mohammad Shakeel from Rajouri, as stated by the spokesperson.
