Hyderabad, June 11: Two persons, including an employee of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), were arrested today for the Rs 1.43 scam involving the theft of Compact Discs (CDs) containing the Electronic Permanent Index Numbers (EPINs) from the BSNL office at Adarsh Nagar a few months back. Though the accused have encashed more than Rs one crore worth EPINs or more popularly known as recharge coupons, police could recover only Rs 5.6 lakh cash and gold ornaments worth Rs 3.2 lakh from the accused.
The duo had spent most of the money to repay their debts or invested in real estate. One of the accused had spend the money for his daughter’s marriage, police said.
The scam took place in 2009 when 26 CDs containing 1.3 lakh BSNL recharge numbers went missing from the salesII department in the Telephone Bhavan at Adarsh Nagar . The scam, however, came to light recently and the BSNL assistant general manager, A Ratna Mohan Rao, registered a case with the police.
Police said the store incharge, K Lokanatha Rao, was unable to detect the theft as the main accused, P Ramesh, the telecom officer in the office, replace the stolen CDs with blank ones.
Investigating into the scam, Saifabad police today arrested Ramesh and another person, U Vijay, who runs Panchajanya Enterprises, a BSNL franchise at Secunderabad. After stealing the CDs, Ramesh and Vijay converted the data into recharge cards at Bhagavathi printers at Parel in Mumbai.
The recharge cards were later sold through wholesalers and retailers and the duo realized Rs 1.04 crore through the sale of these cards.
All these, the theft, conversion of data and sale of recharge coupons, took place between November 2009 to May 2010, Central Zone DCP Akun Sabarwal said.
As his share, Ramesh took Rs 70 lakh while the remaining Rs 34 lakh was given to Vijay.
“Ramesh used most of his share to clear his debts and the remaining to invest in real estate. He also used the money to fix the marriages of his son and daughter,” the DCP said. Ramesh also purchased a car for his daughter’s marriage. Vijay told police that he purchased a piece of land on the outskirts of the city.
Cases under Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by a public servant) and 420 (cheating) against the accused and remanded them to judicial custody.
–Agencies