Bhubaneswar, Feb. 11: Balangir police today arrested two persons allegedly involved in the fraudulent withdrawal of money worth over Rs 5 lakh from various government offices by hacking the rural job scheme's website.

The accused are identified as Dharmendra Thakur, 35, a former contractual computer programmer at Belpada block, and his aide, Sujit Agarwal, 30, an employee at the Patnagarh branch of the State Bank of India.

The police picked the accused two days ago and were interrogating them for charges of fraudulent activities.

Balangir sub-divisional police officer Narayan Nayak said Thakur was the mastermind behind the crime. As he was working in the Belapada block office as a computer programmer he had knowledge of the Ids and passwords of various government websites.

"He had opened as many as 31 fake beneficiary accounts at the Patnagarh SBI. He managed to obtain the digital signature certificate by presenting fake documents in the name of one Jagabandhu Sahu, whom he had projected as the extension officer of Tentapada panchayat. He then transferred cash from the accounts of the forest and horticulture departments and the Belapada block office to these fake accounts," said Nayak.

Agarwal helped Thakur in his attempt in opening the accounts and transferring the cash. The police said that, while investigating the matter, they had come to know about Jagabandhu Sahu's documents that Thakur had fraudulently procured. Thakur had applied through Sahu's documents for the digital signature certificate, and to authenticate it, he had forged the signature ofthe block development officer of Belapada.

The digital signature certificate is an electronic document essential for accessing the www.nrega.nic.in website and transferring funds. The National Informatics Centre provides this document for ensuring security during online transactions of the governments.

Nayak also hinted that they had been looking into the matter and suspected that more people might be involved in the crime. Even Thakur had said that such crimes could not be committed without the help of more people.

The incident came to notice following complaints lodged by divisional forest officer Rashmi Ranjan Nayak and deputy director of the horticulture department Ranjan Dasmohapatra with Balangir Town Police on February 7.