Imphal, April 6: The Manipur Assembly has dug out a multi-crore-rupee rip-off in the general provident fund of employees of various government departments.

A House committee, which has been probing the fraudulent withdrawal of cash from the general provident fund (GPF) of Manipur government staff without these employees? knowledge, claimed that 16 fresh cases have been detected during its inquiry.

The Assembly constituted a committee last year to probe the cases after the Opposition raised the issue, quoting newspaper reports. The committee has already held two sittings and is planning to hold another round next week.

The scandal, involving at least five government departments, surfaced after the school education department was rocked by two major scandals. While one was about the illegal appointment of a large number of schoolteachers, the other pertained to withdrawal of the pay arrears of school headmasters without their knowledge.

The Assembly committee said 16 employees belonging to three important departments, have complained that unknown persons had withdrawn cash from the provident fund account after forging their signatures. The three departments are school education, higher education and veterinary and animal husbandry. Similar cases have also been reported from the industry, public works and information and public relations departments.

The complainants said they came to know that their provident fund accounts were cleaned out without their knowledge after the authorities informed them that a certain portion of their salaries would be deducted as the balance in each of their provident fund accounts was nil.

In one case, E. Bhorot Singh, a college lecturer in the senior grade, complained that a sum of Rs 2.8 lakh was withdrawn from his GPF account without his knowledge. A. Satyabrata Singh, an employee in the veterinary department, complained that a sum of Rs 1.4 lakh was withdrawn from his account.

The chairman of the House committee, Moirangthem Nara Singh, said he suspected that a gang of officials from the accountant-general?s office, the treasury department and the different state government departments involved, could be linked to the fraudulent withdrawals.

Though the total amount of cash withdrawn is not known yet, is it estimated that it could run into crores of rupees. The panel chairman said fresh cases were coming to light and this could merely be the tip of the iceberg. He could not provide the exact number of cases detected so far, merely adding that the investigation process was on.

Some of the employees alleged before the committee that senior officials of their departments issued threats against them, warning them against lodging complaints with the panel.

The committee will ferret out all the cases as well as those behind the scam and recommend suitable punishment, Nara Singh said.

He appealed to employees to come forward without fear to submit their claims to the committee. The panel sought a report on the progress of the police investigations into the case. Some employees had lodged complaints with police. The committee also asked all heads of departments to report if there were such cases and file action taken reports.