AYODHYA: Scammers have targeted Ayodhya Temple Trust for the second time in four months, using a pair of cloned checks with forged signatures to divert Rs 6 lakh in a span of 10 days before a third forged check hit a firewall at the Lucknow SBI clearinghouse.
In April, a bogus online portal was created in the trust’s name to steal public donations to build the Ram temple. The fraud was quickly caught and the gateway froze.
In the second case, Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust was in the dark for 10 days about two fraudulent withdrawals totaling Rs 6 lakh from his account with the Ayodhya branch of SBI. The third check cloned for Rs 9.86 lakh was later presented in a Bank of Baroda branch and sent to SBI for compensation.
The alarm bells rang when a senior banking official sensed something was wrong and called trusted secretary Champat Rai to verify if he had signed the high-value check. The transaction stopped just in time when he confirmed that he had not issued such a check.
Based on Rai’s complaint, an FIR was filed at the Ayodhya Police Station on Thursday morning.
Ayodhya DIG Deepak Kumar told TOI, “The first two fraudulent withdrawals totaling Rs 6 lakh had been credited to a GNP account in Maharashtra, which has since been frozen. Of the amount transferred, 4 lakh rupees was withdrawn before the account was identified. Police teams have been dispatched to Lucknow and Mumbai to solve the case. ”
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