Siliguri, Aug. 31: Bhaktinagar police have tracked down two fraudsters who had swindled a sum of Rs 1 lakh from the account of a publishing firm here.

The fraudsters — Manish Garg and Abhishek Bihani — were arrested yesterday. They have been charged with forging the signature of the managing director of the firm on a cheque (No. 874482) issued by a private-sector bank on August 8.

According to Jalpaiguri police superintendent Tripurari, the police took up the case after the managing director, Sandip K. Chaudhury, lodged a general diary at Second Mile under Bhaktinagar police station on August 10. The diary stated that a sum of Rs 1 lakh was missing from the (ICICI) bank account of his office. He also informed police that a cheque-book issued by the bank is also missing.

“We first checked the money withdrawal register of the bank and found that a sum of Rs 1 lakh had been withdrawn through a cheque on August 8 between 4.58 and 5.02 pm. We then got prints of the video footage showing the evening visitors and found that Abhishek was in the bank at that time,” Tripurari said. After this, policemen kept watch on the bank and caught the accused yesterday around 7.45 pm.

On interrogation Abhishek revealed that the plan was worked out by Manish, who worked as an accounts consultant with the publishing firm. He was arrested from his residence at Milan Palli soon after.

Tripurari said the duo used to run a private consultancy firm at Seth Srilal Market here. It was Manish who stole the cheque-book and forged the signature, while Abhishek executed the rest of the plan. He said the forged cheque would be sent to the forensic laboratory in Calcutta for further evidence. The district police chief did not rule out the possibility of the involvement of a section of the bank employees. Bank manager Rabiul Mulla, however, refused to comment on the issue.