South Dinajpur police have recovered a sum of over ₹14 lakh that was siphoned from the bank account of Balurghat municipality in November last year.

Three persons have been arrested in this connection so far. As the police are continuing with the probe to find out if more persons were involved, details of those arrested have been kept under wraps.

However, none of the trio is directly a civic body employee, a police source said.

On November 12, a sum of ₹14.4 lakh was withdrawn from the bank account of the civic body.

Ashok Mitra, the civic chairman, said they found three forged cheques were used to withdraw the money. “As we cross-checked with the serial numbers, it was found that none of these cheques was issued from our end. We then filed a complaint with Balurghat police,” he had said.

Police acted on the complaint and started investigating the case. In due course, they arrested three persons who had withdrawn the money by using forged cheques. Bikram Prasad, the deputy superintendent of police (headquarters) of South Dinajpur, said they recovered the funds from the trio.

“Three persons have been arrested so far and we could recover the money. But our probe is on to determine whether anybody else was involved in the crime,” said the police officer.

On Wednesday, chairman Mitra said the recovered money was deposited in the bank account of the civic body.

“We thank the police for recovering the entire sum. They should also check the role of the bank officials who disbursed the money without verifying it with us,” said Mitra.