Mumbai/Pen, Oct 30 (IANS): Thousands of citizens along with employees of Pen Urban Cooperative Bank from Maharashtra's Raigad district Sunday started a march to chief minister's bungalow in Mumbai to press for their demands.

As a part of the 'Save Pen's Bank' movement, depositors, employees and account holders of the bank from Pen town of the district started the 72-hour march to Mumbai. The movement was supported by the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and the Maharashtra State Bank Employees Federation.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in September last year imposed stringent restrictions and passed an order for the closure of 18 branches of the Pen Bank. Despite this the bank was said to have released loans for over Rs.500 crore to non-existing account holders without verification of documents.

The RBI, in October last year, imposed a penalty of Rs.1 lakh as the bank failed to satisfactorily respond to a show cause notice.

"The 72-hour march will culminate at Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's residence where a delegation of bank representatives will meet and apprise him of the situation," said Vishwas Utagi, general secretary of AIBEA.

"Several employees have lost their jobs and thousands of depositors and account holders have lost their money due to many scams by the bank's chairman and directors," he added.

In November last year, bank chairman Shishir Dharkar, his wife and six others were arrested in connection with another scam related to gold export worth Rs.480 crore.