‘Taruner Swapna’: East Burdwan Police arrests four for siphoning off money meant for students

Kolkata: At a time when East Burdwan district police arrested four persons from Burdwan and Malda, state Education minister Bratya Basu on Tuesday expressed suspicion about the involvement of cyber criminals from other states.

According to sources, it was recently noticed that 28 students of a school in East Burdwan have not received the money that was released for them to buy tabs under the state government’s “Taruner Swapna” scheme. After a complaint was lodged at the Cyber Crime Police Station of East Burdwan, a probe was started. During investigation, police at first came to know that a man identified as Hasem Ali from Malda had logged into the Banglar Siksha portal and changed details of a bank account from his mobile phone.

After arresting Ali, cops arrested three more persons from Chopra and Islampur in North Dinajpur who are allegedly involved in the crime. These three had reportedly received the money that was actually meant for the students. Bratya Basu on Tuesday said: “It has happened in a few schools in various districts. The Chief Secretary held a high-level meeting on Monday and administrative steps have been taken. The police have been instructed to investigate the entire incident and as part of that, arrests have been made. In fact, an arrest was made even on Tuesday. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been asked to investigate the matter. NIC has already proposed a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and is identifying the hackers responsible. The Chief Minister has given strict directives.”

He added: “I think that it’s highly impossible that some gang from out of state, like Jamtara, is behind this. But until the police inform us about it, we can’t be sure. Steps have been taken and will continue to be taken; that is the main thing.”

Apart from Burdwan, similar such fraudulent activities were reported from Murshidabad district as well where the money meant for the students was found to have been credited in a bank account in Bihar.