Seven held in connection with Rs 2,600-crore UP provident fund scam

Seven people were arrested by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Uttar Pradesh Police on Friday in connection with the Rs 2,600-crore provident fund scam, a senior official said.

Those arrested included Amit Prakash, former regional manager of the DHFL Lucknow branch who had a role in registering different people and firms, Additional Chief Secretary Awanish Awasthi said.

Other accused persons were identified as Manoj Kumar Agarwal, Vikas Chawla, Sanjay Kumar, Shyam Agarwal, a chartered accountant , Arun Jain and Pankaj Giri alias Neeshu who worked in connivance with Shyam Agarwal, he said.

Over Rs 2,600 crore of the state power employees' provident fund (PF) was reportedly invested in the scam-hit Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL), prompting the state government to order a CBI probe.

The investment in DHFL was made between March 2017 and December 2018.

Earlier, former secretary of the Uttar Pradesh State Power Employees' Trust and the Provident Fund Trust of the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited Praveen Kumar Gupta, former director of finance at the UPPCL Sudhanshu Dwivedi and former managing director of the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited A P Mishra were arrested.

Two others, including Abhinav who is a son of Praveen Kumar Gupta and his friend Ashish Chowdhury who played a key role in transferring the provident fund (PF) money to housing finance firm DHFL, were also nabbed.