M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Nov.23: The town police are set to pray to the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Daltonganj seeking the order to hold a test identification parade of the gold and gold contents for the 7 victims of the locker fraud at the United Bank of India (now merged with the PNB). The victims were pilfered of gold and gold contents along with silver etc were stolen from these lockers.
SP Palamu, Chandan Kr Sinha said, “Once we get the court’s order to conduct the test identification parade of the gold and gold contents, it will be done in all transparent, fair and to the satisfaction of the victim locker holders.”
The SP has appealed to the victims to be honest and true in identifying their own gold and gold contents, failing which if any dispute or controversy arises then the whole prospect of getting back gold etc will be dashed to the ground.
“We have retrieved a sizable amount of the stolen gold and gold contents from the 7 lockers barring one accused Rishu who is at large and is suspected to have also a privy to the stolen gold and gold contents. The police are after him and he can’t get away for any longer,” the SP said.
“As the police have retrieved much gold and gold contents, it is now the need of the hour to conduct the test identification parade of the stolen gold and gold contents,” he added.
The town police had retrieved 475 grams of gold from Muthoot finance Ranchi and 606.71 grams of gold from ICICI branch in Daltonganj.
These two financial institutions had advanced gold loans to the borrowers who had this stolen gold of the 7 lockers of the UBI Daltonganj branch with them.
The town police team led by officer in-charge A K Mahatha, under directive of the SP, made a very tough and a near impossible task of retrieval of gold a reality by taking into possession of gold and gold contents from the two financial institutions.
Sources said that these two financial institutions did everything to prolong the process of releasing the mortgaged gold and gold contents to the police.
Nearly one and a half dozen people including the branch manager and deputy branch manager of the UBI were caught and jailed.
The theft in the 7 lockers were detected only last month and there was a great public discontent but tactful handling of the episode by the town police and a direct one to one contact among the SP, town police and the victims of the lockers so pilfered kept the temper and mood under the thumb as otherwise anything unpleasant would not have been ruled out happening to the bank officials then.
