A joint team of Purba Barddhaman and Malda police arrested four persons on Tuesday night charging them with siphoning off state government funds for higher secondary students under the Taruner Swapna scheme for buying tabs or cell phones.

Pradeep Kumar Yadav, the superintendent of police of Malda, said the quartet of Rocky Sheikh, Sraban Sarkar, Jamal Hossain, and Pintu Sheikh were arrested from Baishnabnagar.

So far, five persons have been arrested in Malda in connection with the scam. On Monday, Hasan Ali, who is also from Baishnabnagar, was arrested in connection with the same case.

Sources said that when Ali was arrested on Monday, Rocky was also detained but later released. However, based on the information shared by Ali to the police, Rocky, who had taught computers to Ali, was arrested within 24 hours.

“Sraban Sarkar, who is from Shyamtola village, runs a cyber cafe. The police have seized his laptop, a few diaries, and bank passbooks from him. The other two were also involved with them in siphoning the fund disbursed by the state for the students,” said a source.

A police officer said they have seized pen drives, laptops, hard disks of the computers used in the cyber cafe, bank documents and some other items.

The police have also detained a person who runs a customer service point of a nationalised bank for interrogation, sources said.

Taruner Swapna, started by the Mamata Banerjee government in 2022, gives ₹10,000 to each state-aided school student appearing for higher secondary exams to buy a tab or smartphone as aids to digital learning. Recently, Taruner Swapna misappropriation surfaced from many districts, with bona fide beneficiaries not getting funds.