MUMBAI: The city Economic Offences Wing (EOW), probing the alleged misappropriation of Rs 122 crore cash from New India Cooperative Bank, arrested Javed Aazam, the younger brother of BJP’s former Maharashtra secretary Hyder Azam, late on Monday. A senior EOW officer confirmed the arrest and said that Javed will be produced before the court on Tuesday.
This is the seventh arrest in the scam which came to light on Feb 12, when a team of RBI officials inspected New India Cooperative Bank and found Rs 122 crore cash missing. So far, the EOW has arrested the bank’s general manager and head of accounts Hitesh Mehta, the bank’s former CEO Abhimanyu Bhoan, developer Dharmesh Paun, Malad businessman Unnathan Arunachalam and his son Manohar, and civil contractor Kapil Dediah.
In a related development, a police source said they have received the report of the lie-detector test conducted on Mehta, the main accused in the case, on March 11. “The report is deceptive; neither truthful nor conclusive,” the police source said.
The EOW summoned Javed for questioning on Monday after his name cropped up during the interrogation of Unnathan, who was arrested the previous day. According to sources, Unnathan allegedly told his interrogators that he gave Rs 18 crore to Javed for his electronics business. The EOW is now investigating Javed’s financial dealings and whether his political ties helped conceal the misappropriation of funds.
In 2022, Hyder was mired in a controversy when his wife Reshma was accused of being a Bangladeshi national and submitting forged documents to procure an Indian passport. She was later discharged from the case.
The New India Cooperative Bank, with 1.3 lakh depositors, has 28 branches in Maharashtra and Gujarat.
