Mohammed Yunus

Patna, Feb. 23: A youth who rose from penury to amass assets worth crores is how residents of Chandanpatti village in Muzaffarpur portray Mohammed Yunus, arrested in a disproportionate assets case last week.

His rags-to-riches story, however, did not impress them much. Most of Yunus’s neighbours, who have seen him growing in the village, hoped that the government would not succumb to any pressure and punish the officer, who allegedly amassed assets worth over Rs 50 crore through unscrupulous means.

Summing up the general mood in Chandanpatti, a former teacher of the local government high school, said: “Ant bhala to sab bhala (all is well that ends well). Yunus would now have to pay a heavy price for his misdeeds.” The teacher, preferring anonymity, is known to Yunus’s family for around five decades.

“Yunus fell into the Economic Offences Unit trap only three months before his retirement. He was reportedly hell-bent on extorting money from truckers carrying goods above the prescribed limit. This is evident from the diary recovered from his personal accountant’s house in Patna,” he told The Telegraph.

The teacher, who retired from service around a decade ago, said he got to know Yunus’s family through his uncle, Mohammed Yusuf, a teacher. “Yunus, nurtured under his uncle’s tutelage, was not extravagant from the beginning. He did not spend lavishly. People used to call him a miser. He never helped anyone in the village,” he said.

“He had been a hard worker since he joined the police (home) department as a constable. His lifestyle did not change even after becoming a millionaire,” recalled the teacher.

Sources said Yunus was spotted in a jeep allotted to him by the department most of the time. He came to his native village in the jeep though he owns a car, besides a fleet of vehicles registered in the name of his two sons and other relatives. Documents related to 18 vehicles were seized during a search of his residential premises on Wednesday.

The 5’6”-tall Yunus, who has a wheatish complexion, started his career as a modest police constable with Bihar police in 1974 at Bettiah in West Champaran. Thereafter, he was deputed at the district transport offices (DTOs) at Motihari in East Champaran and Muzaffarpur districts for a long time.

Later promoted to the rank of sub-inspector, Yunus was appointed as an enforcement officer in the transport department. His proximity with a former director-general of police was an open secret, sources said.

“He was a blue-eyed boy of a former IPS officer,” said a local resident, adding that the senior police officer had allegedly helped Yunus clinch plum postings.

Some residents said Yunus had initially aspired to become a school teacher. His father, Mohammad Siddiqui, eked out a living taking up odd jobs, while mother Latifan was a vegetable vendor.

“The family was so poor that his mother committed suicide,” said another resident.

He added that Yunus purchased several plots of land while being posted in Muzaffarpur district. Yunus reportedly purchased 23 cottahs in Birganj (Nepal) while being posted in Motihari and built a multi-storeyed building was later constructed on a portion of land. He has a bank account too, they claimed.

Yesterday, the EOU froze three banks accounts of Yunus and his family members at the Sujawalpur branch of Bank of India in Muzaffarpur. Branch manager B.D. Binod confirmed the news. He, however, refused to disclose the deposits in the accounts.

Investigating officials said information about the disproportionate assets cases lodged against three government employees, including Yunus, had already been given to the departments concerned.

The sources said Yunus had allegedly employed people to collect money from truck drivers on his behalf. “The middlemen, clad in police uniforms, would move around in a jeep (registration number BR1A-5555),” an officer in the transport department said.

The uniforms were recovered from the Rukkanpura house of Pawan Kumar, Yunus’s personal accountant, last Thursday.