Hyderabad: 4 held in Aasara scheme fraud

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad cyber crime police probing the Aasara Pension scheme fraud has arrested four persons who fraudulently added the names of 255 persons who were ineligible for the pension. The police found that the accused have caused a loss to the state exchequer of Rs 25 lakh so far.

The police said that during the investigation into the scam, which is about the diversion of Aasara pension funds to ineligible persons, it was found that the perpetrators used the login credentials of the mandal revenue officer of Bandlaguda.

The arrested men are Mohammed Imran, 30, who worked at the MRO office in Bandlaguda and had obtained the username and password of the MRO, Charminar, and his friends Mohammed Aslam, 25, and Syed Sohailuddin, 23. The details were also shared with Mohammed Mohsin, 31, for a fee.

The four were arrested by the cyber crime police on Tuesday and produced before a court for judicial remand.
“Mohsin had appointed a woman to collect applications from citizens for the Aasara scheme. They collected Rs 500 from each person to enter their details, including bank account numbers, for the Aasara pensions. The woman who collected the applications has been identified but is yet to be nabbed," said an investigator.

The officials said that irrespective of eligibility, the accused replaced the names of 255 genuine beneficiaries by false ones.

“Aslam had collected several applications from different parts of the city on a commission basis. After receiving the commission, Aslam added new beneficiaries from the Charminar MRO login. As of now, we estimate the accused may have committed a fraud approximating to an amount of Rs 25 lakh,” said Mr Avinash Mohanty, joint Commissioner, detective department.