Ex-chairman of temple booked for misappropriation of Rs 3 cr

Former chairman of Vajreshwari temple in Thane district of Maharashtra has been booked for allegedly misappropriating its funds to the tune of Rs 3.22 crore, police said on Saturday.

A search has been launched to trace the accused, Manoj Pradhan, former president of the Thane unit of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), who was on the run, police said.

"Pradhan, former chairman of the Shree Vajreshwari Yogini Devi temple trust, allegedly misappropriated temple's funds worth Rs 3.22 crore," Vilas Sanap, police inspector of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the district rural police, said.

The alleged fraud committed between February 2014 and March 2017, came to light during the audit, following which its present chairman Kalpesh Patil complained to the police, he said.

"As per the complaint lodged by Patil last week, Pradhan had fabricated the fixed deposit documents of the matured deposits to show as if they have been reinvested in a bank at Mulund although it was not the case," Sanap said.

In some cases, the FD receipts did not have the mandatory signature of bank officers, while in some others there were no signatures at all, he added.

According to sources, the fraud was brought to notice of the temple authorities by the auditors.

Sanap said Pradhan has been booked by Ganeshpuri police in the district under IPC sections 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 472 (making or possessing counterfeit seal, etc), and others.

Sri Vajreshwari Yogini Devi Mandir is situated in Vajreshwari town on the banks of Tansa river in Thane district.