Lucknow: In a rather shocking instance, the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust in Ayodhya has been defrauded through fake cheques. Two fake cheques worth six lakhs were detected during the verification process by the trust secretary Champat Rai.
A first information report was filed with the Ayodhya police against the fraudsters.
Ayodhya’s deputy inspector general, Deepak Kumar, said the amount was withdrawn using cloned cheques of Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 3.5 lakh. Kumar said the trust authorities have confirmed original cheques of the same serial numbers used to withdraw the money are with them.
The inspector said the fraud was discovered when Rai got a verification call from the bank on Wednesday afternoon when the third cloned cheque of Rs 9.86 lakh was placed for clearance. He said the authorities later discovered two cloned cheques had been used to withdraw money earlier on September 1 and 3.
He said the FIR has been registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC)’s sections 419 (impersonation) and 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 468 (forgery for cheating) and 471 (using forged cheque as original).