Civic official arrested for theft

KOLKATA: Ashish Mukherjee, an upper division assistant at Tolly Tax office in Gariahat, was arrested on Tuesday night for his alleged involvement in the Rs 3.48-lakh theft from the Gariahat treasury. Mukherjee, a Seoraphuli resident, was absconding ever since the theft was detected.
Mukherjee had gone to meet his lawyer at Ballygunge station road from where a police team picked him up.He was one of the two KMC employees against whom the civic authorities had lodged an FIR with the Gariahat police station on April 4. Debabrata Dirghanghi, his accomplice and an employee of the treasury, was arrested the next day.
A high-powered delegation from KMC headquarters, which visited the office, found that of the Rs 25 lakh kept in the office vault, Mukherjee could flee with only 3.48 lakh. Police raided Mukherjee’s Seoraphuli residence in Hooghly, but could not trace him.
The civic authorities, who are concerned about the safety of the vault, have formed an inquiry committee comprising senior officials to probe the incident. The convener of the committee was asked to submit a report within six weeks.
Almost three months have passed, but the committee members are yet to convene their first meeting let alone probe the matter, conceded a senior official and a member of the six-member committee.
The committee members were also asked to probe why frequent cases of scams and frauds take place at Tolly Tax.
A multi-crore tax scam was first unearthed at the treasury two years ago when a former Calcutta High Court judge complained to then mayor Subrata Mukherjee that he had received fake property tax bills from Tolly tax. Two civic employees were arrested in this connection, but they were later released on bail.