By Express News Service

MUMBAI: The Mumbai police have found that the Rs 10.2 crore cash seized by them late Thursday night in the eastern Mumbai suburb of Tilaknagar belongs to a bank founded by the late BJP leader Gopinath Munde where his daughter BJP MP Pritam Munde is one of the directors.

Deputy commissioner of police Shahaji Umap said the cash belonged to the Vaidyanath Urban Co-operative Bank. The manager and two staffers of the bank's Pimpri-Chinchwad branch were transporting the cash from Ghatkopar to Pune. The seizure included Rs 10 lakh in new Rs 2,000 notes and the rest in withdrawn currency.

Pritam Munde said seized cash was not unaccounted money."The cash was being taken from one branch to another. I was told that all the accounting details regarding the cash were there in the vehicle from which the cash was seized," she told New Indian Express.

However, sources said the three bank officials present in the vehicle told Income-Tax officials that the money was part of a total of Rs 25 crore being transferred but could not give an explanation about the rest of the money. However, the three staffers were released by the police.

This was the biggest haul of cash by the Mumbai police since November 8 when the Union government withdrew Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes from the market.

In two more cases reported from Maharashtra, Rs 1.6 crore was seized from three merchants and a Shiv Sena corporator in Kalyan and Nalasopara in Thane district in the past 24 hours. The Shiv Sena corporator from Nalasopara, Dhananjay Gawade, was detained for carrying new notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2000 denomination worth Rs 40 lakh and over Rs 1 crore in old notes. In Kalyan, police recovered Rs 21.22 lakh from two people identified as Mayur Thakkar, a milk businessman, and Tushar Manek, a garment merchant.