Teacher held for posing as CBI officer, threatening bank managers

Police arrested a 40-year-old school teacher on charges of threatening Branch managers of different banks posing as senior officers of various central investigation agencies. He was arrested from his rented house in Malda Town.

Police said the accused Sukumar Mondal is originally a resident of Kaliachak in Malda. But he had been staying in a rented house with his family at Nunbahi area in Manikchak.

For the past few days, managers of different banks in Malda had been receiving phone calls and the caller was claiming himself to be a senior officer of the Central Bureau of Investigation. He even claimed himself to be an officer of Enforcement Directorate. He used to threaten them of conducting raids in their Branches and demanded money from them.

Though no one came to their banks to collect any money, the managers continued receiving calls saying that there would be raids if any discrepancies are found in the dealings of the bank. He used to claim that the discrepancies could be easily ascertained with the help of certain software available with the investigating agencies.

Being clueless of what exactly was happening, one of the Branch manager informed the police. Later similar complaints were lodged by managers of some more Branches of different banks.

The police initiated a probe in this connection and ascertained the caller by tracking the phones of the banks. The police found that the same person was calling to managers of all the branches of the banks.

The police conducted a raid at the rented house in Malda Town, where he stays with his wife and children, and arrested him. His family members claimed that he was suffering from schizophrenia and it led to such behaviour. The police are, however, trying to ascertain whether there was any ulterior motive behind making the calls or it happened just because of his illness.