The Kurnool police on Tuesday arrested 24 persons accused of defrauding the Sri Bhramaramba Mallikarjuna Temple at Srisailam of ₹2.12 crore over three years and recovered ₹83.40 lakh from them.
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The police had earlier arrested three others in related cases. Four different complaints were filed by the Executive Officer since July 2017.
Detailing four different modus operandi of the accused to reporters, Special Investigation Officer and Atmakur Deputy Superintendent of Police J. Venkata Rao said Rupesh, an M.Tech graduate, and one Darsely allegedly made use of outsourced systems operators in defrauding the temple of small amounts everyday, taking advantage of the loopholes in the software of the Endowments Department.
The fraud occurred after ticketing procedure was made online through Temple Management System (TMS) software in June 2017. The then Executive Officer, Bharat Kumar Gupta, had reportedly detected in CCTV camera the mastermind Rupesh, who had come to Srisailam from Vijayawada to operationalise the TMS, taking away some cash from a ticket counter and complained to the police in December 2017.
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Police arrested one person on February 7 and recovered ₹14 lakh from him for the alleged fraud committed in issuing ‘VIP Darshan’ tickets. The modus operandi the counter operator used was closing the accounts at noon, if his shift ended at 1 p.m. Tickets issued for one hour were not recorded in the returns he filed and money deposited with banks for six months till December 2017.
The software took cognisance of just one operator per shift for totalling the amount collected. When the Temple EO had a doubt, he called for the system backend report of a day and found a lot of discrepancy in the amounts actually collected and deposited with the banks.
Another alleged fraud was by creating six fake IDs of non-existent operators at the Donation Counter and siphoning off ₹56 lakh. Two police cases were registered in April and two persons were arrested recovering ₹26 lakh from them. While the operators made bulk of entries in the genuine IDs, a small number was allegedly done with fake IDs everyday giving no scope for doubt. While Rupesh was sent back in December 2017, Darsely took over from him.
The bulk of the amount was, however, allegedly taken out of the system in the ‘₹150 Entry Ticket’ and ‘Arjitha Seva’ counters in the new software SIMS was installed by Hyderabad-based Thoughts Cube Infotech Private Limited instead of the TMS. The temple was reportedly defrauded of ₹1.42 crore through these two counters. A complaint was filed by EO Karanam S. Rama Rao on May 24, said Mr. Venkata Rao.
The operators here installed an unauthorised browser, which allowed printing of multiple original tickets with the same serial number. Those checking the entry tickets were allegedly hand in glove with the operators. The fourth kind of cheating was in Arjitha Sevas, where devotees had to be given pooja kits and these people allegedly incorporated a supplier, for giving kits to match the additional duplicate tickets issued by the operators.
Further likelihood of similar fraud in Kalyana Katta, Tollgate and money collected for accommodation are being probed by the police.