Mahesh Mandal, one of the accused in the Srijan scam, died late on Sunday in a hospital in Bhagalpur, Bihar, due to a kidney problem, say doctors.
Mandal, who was a Bhagalpur District Welfare Department Accountant (nazir), was arrested on August 13 and sent to jail two days later allegedly for being a conduit in the multi-crore Srijan scam in which an NGO had siphoned off government funds worth crores of rupees with the connivance of State government staff members and bank officials.
Over a dozen people have been arrested related to the scam and sent to jail.
Officials told The Hindu that Mandal’s condition had deteriorated in the Bhagalpur jail on Sunday night following which he was taken to Mayaganj Hospital where he died.
“Mr Mandal had a kidney and sugar problem for which he had been taking medical treatment earlier. When his condition deteriorated on Sunday night, he was sent to Mayaganj hospital where he died”, Ramanuj Kumar, jailer of the Bhagalpur central prison, told local journalists. Mandal had earlier been provided dialysis in a prominent hospital in Mumbai.
However, Mandal’s family members have charged that the government did not provide proper treatment to him as he might have spilled the beans in the Srijan scam in which several people would have been arrested.
Earlier, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had declared in a programme that a big scam of siphoning off government money from the Bhagalpur district treasury by an NGO had happened, and the government had constituted a probe team.
Later, when the scam got bigger and bigger with the involvement of central bank employees and other officials, Mr. Kumar last Thursday recommended a CBI inquiry into the scam.
The Srijan Mahila Vikas Sahyog Samiti is located in Sabour, about 10 km away from Bhagalpur. The NGO was founded by the late Manorama Devi and in the last ten years it has siphoned off over Rs 1000 crore from the government treasury through fraudulent means and in connivance with bank and government officials, said the investigating team.
The NGO apparently was providing vocational training to women and selling pickles.
Sources in the investigating team also told The Hindu that Mandal was a close associate of Ms. Devi and he had also accumulated huge illegal property. His son Shiv Kumar Mandal had spent a lot of money during the last local body election.
After the death of Ms. Devi in February this year, her younger son Amit Kumar and his wife Priya Kumari took charge of the NGO. Both are absconding.
The opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav recently had released pictures in which Ms. Devi was seen felicitating some state BJP leaders.
Mr Yadav later demanded the resignation of the Chief Minister Mr. Kumar and his deputy in the cabinet Sushil Kumar Modi during whose regime, from 2006-2015, such a huge scam , “even bigger than fodder scam” he said, had happened.
