Myagdi, 8 February: The police have started an investigation into the case of embezzlement of savings at the Kumari Multipurpose Cooperative Organization in Beni Municipality-8, Myagdi.
The District Police Office, Myagdi, has taken five directors, managers, and documents into custody based on the recommendation of the Cooperative Registrar Office, Pokhara, for embezzling the shares, savings, and funds of share members and savers. The District Police Office, Myagdi, has begun gathering additional evidence.
An investigation report conducted by the Office of the Cooperative Registrar, Pokhara, states that the Kumari Cooperative, which was opened in 2065 BS and has 6,000 savers, has misappropriated Rs 1.49 billion. The Cooperative’s money has been used for personal gain, such as playing with the treasury, investing in boarding schools, and real estate, according to the Office of the Cooperative Registrar.
The police had arrested five directors and managers of Kumari Cooperative on Magh 20 for investigation. Police Inspector Sagar Poudel said that work is underway to collect complaints from savers to gather evidence for the investigation into the Kumari Cooperative.
On Magh 21, the police had issued a public notice requesting them to come in contact with the originals of their passbooks, vouchers, statements, term certificates and other evidence. Rajkumar Thapa, the head of the District Coordination Committee Myagdi, who is the former vice-chairman of the cooperative’s executive committee, the then manager Rudra Gurung, former chairmen of the executive committee Man Prasad Thajali, Tham Bahadur Garbuja and executive Devi Kumari Thapa are in police custody.
Thapa, 36, of Beni Municipality-1, was elected as the head of the Jesus Society from the CPN (UML) in the last local level election. The court has allowed them to be detained for the second time until Magh 28 for investigation. Police have stated that they are being investigated for the offense defined under the Cooperative Act-2074 for embezzlement of the savings of savers.
Saver in trouble
It has been two years since Dil Bahadur Garbuja, 50, of Annapurna Rural Municipality-7, Gharamdi, started running to withdraw his savings of Rs 4.3 million that he had deposited in a fixed-term account with the Kumari Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society of Beni 12 years ago. “All the money he had earned through hard work and sweat in Qatar for 12 years was invested in the cooperative under the lure of good interest,” said Garbuja. “We are in a dilemma after the cooperative did not return the savings.”
Dil Shobha Garbuja, a 50-year-old woman from Gharamdi, who has saved Rs. 1 million 14 thousand, complained that she is having problems running the household and educating her children after her money sank into the cooperative. “The money that my husband earned by working hard abroad and that I saved by selling chicken chicks has not been returned to the cooperative for years,” she said. “I have come to a point where I am suffering because of my own money.”
Thirteen people, including Dil Bahadur, Dil Sobha, Chha Bahadur Paija, had reserved two jeeps and come to Beni to file a police complaint on Friday, hoping to recover the money stuck in the cooperative. More than Rs 10 million of their money is stuck in the cooperative.
The victims of the cooperative in Beni Municipality-8 are not just households. In the last five days, a large number of people have come to the District Police Office, Myagdi, to file complaints demanding the return of their savings that have been sunk in the cooperative.
