Six held for swindling over Rs 1 cr from Kanya Vivah Yojna in UP

Kanpur, Feb 16 (IANS) Six people have been arrested on siphoning off over one crore in the Kanya Vivah Yojana in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur district.

Those arrested on Thursday include one couple and an assistant accountant of the labour department.

Police claimed that with the help of an assistant accountant, the mastermind hacked the web portal while his alleged girlfriend and associates transferred money to the accounts of fake beneficiaries before transferring it into his account and distributed it among the gang.

Labour department had outsourced the assistant accountant, Udit Mishra, to resolve other issues related to the accounting software.

DCP (Crime) Ashish Srivastava said Mishra ran a business centre in Sajeti area of the district.

"An ethical hacker, he used to earn money by pointing out shortcomings in government and private websites and portals and had developed links with officials of Labour department," he said.

Police said the labour department's officials from Lucknow too started seeking help from him to resolve issues related to the portal, which gave him strong foothold in the department.

"Mishra got acquainted with Vinay Dixit, the assistant accountant in the treasury office of education department with additional charge of the labour department and with his help, Mishra obtained digital signature of the Treasury officer.

"A sum of Rs 1,10,00,000 was transferred through fake registration of 201 ineligible applicants and applying for the Kanya Vivah Yojana. Mishra first did a trial run, transferring Rs 15 lakh to various accounts by creating fake applicants," a senior police official said.

The fraud came to fore when the investigation team searched the bank accounts of Mishra and his brother Ankit, said police.

"Vinay Dixit had provided bank account numbers to transfer Rs 15 lakh withdrawn during the trial. Mishra, his girlfriend Nancy Thakur and brother Ankit, took help of the Jan Seva Kendra network to make the huge amount of money.

He scanned for people who could provide him Aadhaar number or bank account of various people and came in contact with Mohammad Yasin and Lalit Kashyap of Moradabad, along with Muntazir and Arjan, Mastan of Amroha and Sitapur after depositing money in bank and payments bank accounts provided them. Later, Udit put the money back into Ankit's account," the police added.