MUMBAI, June 8 -- A special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court on Thursday allowed the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to question the eight people booked for embezzling funds from the cash reserves of New India Cooperative Bank. The court passed the order on a plea moved by the agency seeking to record the statements of the accused persons currently lodged in Arthur Road Jail. The court granted them permission after considering that the officials wanted to investigate the money laundering aspect of the case. Earlier this year, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) arrested eight people, including the former general manager Hitesh Mehta and others, for allegedly siphoning off Rs.122 crore from the bank's cash reserves. The alleged embezzlement came to light during an audit at the bank's headquarters in Prabhadevi on February 12, when Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials found Rs.122 crore missing from its cash vaults. Later that evening, Mehta confessed to siphoning off the cash from the bank's Prabhadevi and Goregaon branches since 2020, which led to further investigation and several other arrests. The court directed the superintendent of Arthur Road jail to allow the ED officials to record the statements of the accused persons, several of them accused of receiving kickbacks from the misappropriated sum. This includes Hitesh Pravinchandra Mehta, Dharmesh Jayantilal Poun, Abhimanyu Surendirkumar Bhoan, Unnanathan Arunachalam Maruthuvar, Manohar Arunchalam Maruthuvar, Kapil Kalyaniji Dedhiya, Javed Iqbal Ajam, and Rajivranjan Rameshchandra Pande. The court also directed the superintendent to allow ED officials to carry electronic gadgets such as mobile phones, laptops, a printer, pen drives, etc with them for recording statements of the accused persons. As per the EOW, Hiren Bhanu, former chairperson and vice-chairperson, and his wife Gauri Bhanu are the beneficiaries of the misappropriated funds . The absconding duo are suspected to be staying in Abu Dhabi....