City police arrested Mohammad Khurshid, 56, for his alleged involvement in a Rs 55 lakh embezzlement scam linked to the Provident Fund (PF) auto-withdrawal system of the state insurance and provident fund department.
The scam was exposed after a complaint by the joint director of the department on June 27, 2023. Officials, including Khurshid and Sandeep Mathur, manipulated the auto-withdrawal system — launched in 2021 — which allows employees to withdraw funds via OTP verification on their registered mobiles.
They inflated their GPF opening balances predating April 1, 2012, and diverted nearly 90% of these inflated funds into their personal accounts, causing huge losses to the government.
An FIR under IPC sections 420, 406, 409, and 120B was filed. While Mathur was taken into judicial custody, Khurshid and another accused, Lokesh Meena, were absconding. The court issued permanent warrants, and a cash reward of Rs 15,000 has been announced for information leading to their arrests.
