WB tab scam: 11 held as police suspect involvement of inter-state gangs

Following orders from West Bengal director-general of police (DGP) Rajeev Kumar, a special investigation team (SIT) has been formed to probe recent cases of cyber fraud linked to the state government's ‘Taruner Swapno’ scheme, which provides Rs 10,000 to Class 10 and 12 students to purchase tablets or tabs.

In the last few days, several cases have been reported of Rs 10,000 to each student transferred from the state government exchequer being siphoned off to different bank accounts instead of those belonging to genuine beneficiaries.

According to additional director-general of police (South Bengal) Supratim Sarkar, the joint investigation monitoring team will comprise top officials from the state police, who will be monitoring the progress of the investigation. He added that as per the data collected from the state education department, a total of 1,911 of the 16 lakh beneficiaries were cheated as a result of the cyber fraud.

"This is about 0.1 per cent of the total, though even a single case is one too many. So far, 93 such cases have been reported in the state. We have 11 individuals, of whom three were arrested from East Midnapore district in the last 24 hours. Two of them are residents of Malda and one is from Chopra in North Dinajpur district," Sarkar said at a press conference at the West Bengal Police headquarters on Friday.

Earlier on Friday, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that such cyber scams have taken place in other states as well, and West Bengal Police was the first to act on it. "My administration is rough and tough in such cases," she said.

Banerjee also confirmed that students who did not receive the money owing to the cyber fraud would do so shortly. "As I have been informed, some of them have already received the money," she said.

Meanwhile, sources from the state police said an investigation is underway to ascertain if employees within the education department had provided data regarding beneficiaries to the fraudsters.

According to Sarkar, the fraud was perpetrated by cybercriminals operating from multiple states, including Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Jharkhand.

"The investigation has uncovered evidence suggesting the involvement of interstate gangs. Some of the arrested suspects have admitted to being part of these operations, and documents seized during the raids have confirmed their participation in previous cyber scams, including siphoning off funds from other direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes and the national scholarship portal," he added.

"We are trying to find out whether these miscreants manipulated the system, or there was any involvement of people at the ground-level, or whether someone acted as a mole in the system to help the fraudsters," Sarkar said.

With agency inputs