KANNUR: A senior civil police officer of Taliparamba station landed in a soup after illegally withdrawing Rs 50,000 from the account of the sister of a person arrested in a theft case, using an ATM card. E N Sreekanth, against whom action was taken by Rural SP Navaneeth Sharma, also has a theft case registered against him in connection with the incident, according to Taliparamba CI B Jayakumar. In the light of the incident, state police chief Loknath Behera called for a detailed report from Sharma.
The chain of events leading up to the illegal withdrawal of money started with the arrest of Gokul, 28, of Pulimbaramba, near Taliparamba on April 3, for stealing the ATM card of Manoj Kumar of Chokli at Bakkalam. Gokul had robbed Manoj after offering to help repair his auto-taxi in which he was travelling with his sister. After Manoj realised that his ATM card and Rs 2,000 were stolen from his purse, he lodged a complaint with the Taliparamba police.
Following an investigation, a police team led by Taliparamba DySP K E Premachandran arrested Gokul. By the time the police managed to lay their hands on Gokul, he had already withdrawn Rs 70,000 from the account of Manoj. Gokul told officers that he had credited the amount to the account of his sister. When Gokul was taken into custody, he had his sister’s ATM card with him.
Sreekanth withdrew Rs 50k from ATMs
Sreekanth, who took the card from Gokul, obtained the PIN (personal identification number) from the latter's sister after convincing her that it was needed as part of the investigation. Then he withdrew Rs 50,000 from various ATM kiosks.
After she was alerted by mobile notifications on the withdrawals, she lodged a complaint with Premachandran. Following this, the DySP ordered CI B Jayakumar to probe the matter, which shed light on the fraud. A detailed report regarding this was submitted to the rural SP resulting in action being taken against the CPO.