Lucknow, Apr 16 (IANS): A sub-postmaster of the Reserve Police Lines (RPL) post office, in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh's state capital, allegedly embezzled nearly Rs 60 lakh of account holders in the Mahanagar police station area, police said.

The accused, then sub-postmaster Neeraj Singh and his men used the money collected from the account holders in their savings accounts of postal banking services.

The fraud surfaced after one Rita Kumar of RPL lodged a complaint alleging that the sub-postmaster did not deposit the money in her bank account even though he gave her a slip for depositing the money.

The complaint was lodged at the office of Postal Superintendent by postal officer Rajendra Singh, who was assigned the task to investigate the anomalies.

It surfaced that Neeraj embezzled Rs 1.3 lakh from the complainant and deposited it in his savings account. The investigation was advanced further and it was found that Neeraj and his men had embezzled nearly Rs 60 lakh from different customers, who had saving accounts of postal banking services.

Rajendra gave police an exhaustive list of customers whose money was embezzled by Neeraj and his men between January 14, 2021 and February 4, 2023.

He lodged a complaint on the instructions of senior postal officials and said the departmental investigation in the case was also underway.

Sources said if it is probed further, the scam could be one of the biggest scams in the postal department in Lucknow.

"The amount scammed in the fraud is the tip of the iceberg and it may count to several crores on conclusion of the departmental investigation," he said.

Mahanagar Station House Officer, Prashant Mishra, said that an FIR had been lodged under the charges of criminal breach of trust, dishonesty, forgery of valuable security and using documents fraudulently.