Bathinda, Aug. 1 -- A cashier working for the State Bank of India (SBI) in Faridkot's Sadiq town for 15 years has been arrested for stealing at least Rs.14 crore from the bank accounts of unsuspecting customers. The accused, Amit Dhingra, had been on the run since the fraud first came to light on July 21 after a customer at the semi-urban branch detected large-scale discrepancies in his savings account. Hot on the trail of the cashier for nine days, Faridkot police tracked him to an apartment complex in Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh's Mathura district on July 30. As police teams reached Dhingra's hideout, high drama unfolded after he clung to a ninth-floor apartment's balcony and threatened to jump. "Our team managed to persuade him to surrender and he was finally taken into custody with the assistance of Mathura district police," said Faridkot senior superintendent of police (SSP) Pragya Jain on Thursday. With the arrest, police have begun unearthing the accused's modus operandi and the full extend of the fraud. So far, 186 defrauded bank customers have come forward, claiming loss of Rs.14 crore in all, and the amount may go much higher as the financial investigation deepens, said investigators. With his soft-spoken demeanour and long association with the branch, the accused had won the trust of bank customers, mostly rural and often illiterate, who relied on in-person interactions and passbooks. "Exploiting their faith, he would issue fake cash deposit receipts to customers, pocketing their hard-earned money. He also retained the passbooks of several unwary customers to avoid detection," the SSP said. As the fraud came to light, he fled to Uttar Pradesh. Meanwhile, police arrested his wife, Rupinder Kaur, on July 24 after police traced transactions worth Rs.2.30 crore to her bank accounts. "We issued a lookout notice (LoC) for Dhingra the day the fraud surfaced, suspecting that he might try to flee the country. Our team found electronic devices from his hideout in Faridkot and the digital data helped us to track him to Vrindavan," added the SSP. According to SBI's regional manager Praveen Soni, Dhingra was recently transferred to another branch in the same town. But instead of joining his new place of posting, he continued to visit his former workplace and gained access to branch's banking fraudulently. Once we received a tip-off that customers were being duped by Dhingra, a police complaint was lodged immediately, said Soni. He said the bank management was working to contact other affected customers. "Initial probe suggests that the number of victims may be much higher. Our teams will assist the police in finding where the stolen funds were parked," added Soni...