A 30-year-old accused, who was in police custody in connection with a fraud case, escaped from the police station here today, a senior officer said.
"The accused, identified as Ritesh Maratha, was arrested on July 24 along with his accomplice Santosh Malviya (30) in connection with a case in which they are accused of duping bank customers of over Rs 20 lakh through forged cheques," Superintendent of Police (East), OP Tripathi told PTI.
Maratha and Malviya were kept in lock-up at Palasia police station.
"The incident occurred this morning when Maratha told the on-duty guard that he felt like vomitting, following which he was taken out. As he was being escorted back to the lock-up, Maratha allegedly pushed the policeman and ran out of the police station," Tripathi said.
The police remand of Maratha and Malviya was to expire on July 30.
"A detailed report about the incident has been summoned from the concerned police station following which action would be taken against those responsible for the incident," the SP said.
According to a senior officer, attached to Palasia police station, Maratha and Malviya allegedly used to steal cheques from drop boxes and copy signatures on a plain paper. They would then file application with the concerned banks for issuing a duplicate cheque book in the name of the genuine account holder.
"Once the banks issue the cheque book through registered post, the duo, in connivance with local postman, would obtain it and issue cheques to withdraw money from the account of genuine account-holders," the officer explained.
He said that the accused duo would write to bank to "update" the mobile numbers of the account-holder and instead would give theirs so that the genuine account-holder will not get any alerts regarding transactions, on his/her mobile phones.
"The duo have admitted to having withdrawn Rs 20 lakh so far through this modus operandi," the officer said.
