1,900 savers of Dingarnagar Durgami Multi-Purpose Cooperative have been stranded after the president, secretary and manager absconded after misappropriating more than 22 crores of money collected from the public.

This is the 12th cooperative where the director absconded after misappropriating funds.  

Dingarnagar Durgami Multi-Purpose Cooperative Organization in Tilottama Municipality-3 Jankinagar was dealing in milk and milk products. The profit-making cooperative used to provide bonuses ranging from 1,000 to 24,000 to savers every year. It is now revealed that the operators are misappropriating crores of money by distributing some bonus to the savers every year.

After the misappropriation of funds became public, the president of the cooperative Ghanshyam Tiwari, secretary Ram Bahadur Thapa and manager Basant Parajuli are absconding . At the request of the savers, the office of the provincial cooperative registrar, Dang, is conducting an audit of the financial transactions of the cooperative. It is suspected that more than 220 million was embezzled in the preliminary audit. Out of the embezzled amount, it has been seen that only the manager Parajuli used more than 90 million . The remaining amount has been embezzled by Chairman Tiwari and Secretary Khadka.

Manager Parajuli, who is on the run after being accused of misappropriating money, sent his wife to the district court in Rupandehi to get a fake divorce. After getting the information that Basant's wife Binta was going to get a fake divorce, the local saver reached the district court at Bhairahawa . After the protest of the saver, the process of her divorce has been stopped .

Chairman Tiwari has purchased a hotel near Yogikuti in Tilottama and another house at Yogikuti Chowk with the funds of the cooperative. HK Pvt Ltd is operating the closed hotel after purchase. Apart from that, the savers allege that the three persons are investing the funds of the cooperative in the real estate business and Palpa's limestone mine. 

Durgami Cooperative in Tilottama was established in the year 2050 . After Dingarnagar Cooperative merged with it, Dingarnagar became Durgami Cooperative after 2067 years. All three have been working as directors and managers since the establishment of the cooperative. Tiwari, who is the president of the cooperative, is the regional representative of the Nepali Congress. He was an aspirant for Tilottama-3 ward president in the last local level election. Similarly, Secretary Thapa Congress is the former secretary of Tilottama Municipal Council. Keshari Pandey, who is the co-treasurer of the cooperative, is the chairman of Tilottama-3.

According to the sources participating in the audit, it has been found in the recent documents that Thapa, the secretary of the cooperative, has embezzled more than 30 million. It has been found that the directors are conducting financial transactions through checks outside of the cooperative's software and they have also made cash transactions of up to 140 million. 

The treasurer of the organization, Surendra Bajracharya, initially discovered that the funds of the cooperative were being embezzled. Bajracharya signed two checks of the cooperative and left on 27th Baisakh, 2082. Later they inquired as to whom the amount was given from that check . Although he found that the amount of one check went to the concerned person, the person whose name and amount were mentioned in the other check did not receive the amount, he became suspicious. "When the manager could not give the details of the amount of the check that I had signed, I felt cold," he said. After that, thinking that there is a problem, I made it public after giving up to the savers.' He said that when he informed the chairman about the matter immediately, the chairman Tiwari also said that it is not a big issue and the manager will settle it. He complains that even though he asked to immediately suspend the manager Parajuli and investigate, the chairman and secretary did not agree.

After the treasurer took the stance of investigation, it was agreed that 5 officers of the board of directors would sit down and settle. During the settlement, it was tried to settle the dispute by making Parajuli, the manager of the organization, guilty. However, after the treasurer Bajracharya did not leave his position, the manager Parajuli made a confession of 95.55 million 30 thousand 88 rupees and the attempt to recover the amount was started . However, after the saver started a protest demanding an impartial audit and bring out the truth, all three absconded.

The savers who started besieging the house of the chairman, secretary, manager of the cooperative from Thursday, also staged a dharna in the cooperative throughout the day on Friday . However, saver Meena Neupane said that they are trying to influence the investigation by deploying a large number of police in the owner's house and cooperative. "When I heard that our funds were also embezzled, I told the chairman and secretary," she said.

Attempts to settle secretly

After the misappropriation of the co-operative's funds became public, an attempt was made to settle the matter by keeping the directors in the efforts of the savers . Manager Basant Parajuli will return 95.55 million and Chairman Tiwari and Secretary Thapa will settle the outstanding balance. There was also an agreement to return the savings of everyone from June 19 in Minutes.

According to one of the savers who tried to reach an agreement, for the immediate solution of the problem, the condition was that Kamal Paudel, a saver member of the cooperative, should provide 100 million cash to the cooperative and for that, President Tiwari or Secretary Thapa should give a mortgage. There was also a preparation to return the savings as needed. However, both the president and the secretary, who had agreed the previous day, tore up the minute and ran away the next day, and the savers became more angry.  According to

source, after the issue of embezzlement of money started to arise in the cooperative, Chairman Tiwari ran away and reached Kathmandu twice. It was Kamal Paudel who convinced him that he would help to return the savings of common people. Some of the savers went to the provincial government and the police and when President Tiwari, who was afraid that he might be arrested, refused to return from Kathmandu, Paudel guaranteed security and took him home from Kathmandu via Bhairahawa Airport. 

Although an agreement was reached on June 16th, on June 17th, President Tiwari said that he was "ready to go to jail, but will not return the public's money", but the attempt to reconcile internally broke down . According to an employee of the cooperative, the chairman said that the next day at 5:30 am, the secretary of the cooperative, Thapa, reached the office of the cooperative. He left the office tearing up the entire minute of the decision of the meeting held since June 6. Police sources also said that Secretary Thapa sat in the cooperative for half an hour and was seen in the CCTV footage. After that, Chairman Tiwari, Secretary Thapa and Manager Parajuli absconded with them. After trying to destroy the evidence in the cooperative by tearing minutes from the three responsible persons, the police locked the cooperative in the presence of the public representative. Now the audit work is being done by finding the lock in the police's Rohbar.  There are 1,900 savers in

cooperative. According to the cooperative, there are about 900 debtors among them. More than 400 savers of the cooperative tried to lodge a complaint with the police demanding action against those who embezzled the funds, but they complained that the police did not file a complaint. District Police Office Butwal Deputy Superintendent of Police Indra Rana said that the Cooperative Registrar Office is conducting an investigation after the details regarding the misappropriation of funds of Dingarnagar Durgami Cooperative were made public. "Now the Provincial Cooperative Registrar's Office is investigating, so police action will only be initiated if the report indicates that action will be taken," he said.