The former postmaster of a branch post office located on the outskirts of Cooch Behar town has been accused of siphoning funds of people who have savings accounts in the post office.

Customers alleged that although the immediate past postmaster, Ratan Das, received money from them and manually updated their passbooks, the balance reflected in their bank accounts is less than the amount shown in the post office passbooks.

On Thursday, several residents who have deposits at the post office reached the office of the branch post office in Guriahati-II panchayat area, which is around 2km away from Cooch Behar town, and demanded that the postal authorities should ensure that they get the money back which they had handed over to Das.

“Das used to collect the cash from us and would manually make entries in the pass books,” said a depositor.

While some depositors complained of a shortage of Rs 20,000, others alleged that money to the tune of Rs 70,000 was missing from their accounts.

A customer, Chandra Guha Neogi, alleged that she and her family members found discrepancies to the tune of Rs 1 lakh.

“Four members of my family have savings accounts at the post office. We had deposited our money in these accounts and have now found a shortage of around Rs 1 lakh,” she said.

Sources said that recently, as new postmaster Abir Nag joined the branch in place of Das, the discrepancies came to light.

“We found anomalies in the balance reflected in the passbooks of some customers. Our seniors are looking into the matter,” said Nag, the postmaster who joined the branch a few days back.

Accused Das, who has been transferred, couldn’t be contacted on Thursday. The postal department, sources said, has begun a probe.