The arrested duo in police custody in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 22: The economic offence wing of crime branch today arrested three persons in connection with a 2010 bank loan fraud case of more than Rs 2 crore.

The accused were identified as Papun Pradhan, 30, Suraj Digal, 36, and Saroj Pradhan, 31. Papun and Suraj are residents of Tikabali while Saroj is a resident of Gudaigiri in Kandhamal.

A senior crime branch official said that the accused were absconding for last two years and were living at Jayadev Vihar Square.

He said that they had withdrawn Rs 3 lakh each from Gandarpur branch of Allahabad Bank in Cuttack under the Sarala Loan Scheme of the bank in 2009 impersonating as the employees of the chief engineer’s office (drainage division), Cuttack.

The investigating officials had arrested six persons in connection with the fraud in February this year.

The arrested persons included branch manager of the bank Akhila Ranjan Das and establishment officer of the chief engineer’s office (drainage division), Cuttack, Rabindra Kumar Jena.

An official of the economic offence wing said that Das and Jena had roped in two middlemen, K. Srikant Patra and Biswanath Samantray, for arranging loan for other persons and finally arranged as many as 85 borrowers, including six employees of the chief engineer’s office.

“The other 79 had also identified themselves as employees of the chief engineer’s office using forged documents and took loans worth over Rs 2.2 crore between December 31,2009 and March 31, 2010. While the fake documents were approved by Jena, the loans were sanctioned by Das, the then branch manager,” said the official.

The matter came to light after the borrowers failed to repay their loans and notices served by the bank on them returned. This prompted the bank to conduct an inquiry. In October 2012, senior bank officials lodged a complaint with the crime branch.

The crime branch arrested Das, Jena, the two middlemen and the two borrowers basing on the complaint.