A team from the Sarsuna police station in Calcutta raided various locations of Siliguri and arrested three persons in connection with the Taruner Swapna grant scam on Sunday near a mall.

Those arrested are Dibakar Das, a resident of Daspara in Chopra of North Dinajpur district, Gopal Roy and Bishal Dhali, both from Champasari in Siliguri.

Sources said the police team reached Kishanganj in Bihar to investigate the theft of Bengal government funds meant for higher secondary students of state-run and state-aided schools to buy tabs or smartphones for digital learning. A one-time grant of ₹10,000 to Class XI and XII students is given under the Taruner Swapna scheme.

During the investigation, they got specific information and headed for Siliguri. The team arrested the trio from near a shopping mall on Sevoke Road in Siliguri.

In another raid on Sunday, a joint team of the East Midnapur district police and their counterpart of the Islampur police district arrested five persons for their involvement in the scam.

On Monday, these five, Usman Ali, Mansur Alam, Roushan Jamal and Kaber Ali, were produced at a local court in Islampur.

Sanjay Bhawal, the public prosecutor of Islampur court, said they had been planning to escape to Delhi when they were arrested.

“The court heard the case and has ordered two days’ transit remand for them. They will be taken to East Midnapore,” he said.

Over the past few days, many cases have been reported from various districts of Bengal where Taruner Swapna money has been transferred to unknown bank accounts within the state and outside, including Delhi, Jharkhand and Bihar. Computer-literate persons, with access to the database of student data and bank accounts, and the know-how to manipulate the transfer of cash to accounts other than that of stuents, seem to be involved.