Akhil C Varghese, a former clerk at the Kottayam Municipality and a key accused in the ₹2.4 crore pension fund scam, was arrested from a hotel near the Kollam Railway Station on Wednesday.

Akhil, who had been on the run since the fraud was unearthed, was arrested around 9 am by the Kottayam Vigilance team, which is investigating the case. Earlier, the local self-government department had initiated steps to dismiss him from service after he failed to respond to a charge memo.

Akhil handled the pension section at the Kottayam municipality from February 2020 to October 2023. According to the case details, Akhil diverted ₹2.4 crore from the municipality’s pension fund to a fake account of Syamala P during the period. The Secretary of the Municipality has reported that Syamala is the mother of Akhil. 

Akhil was later transferred to the Vaikom municipality. Even after being transferred to Vaikom, Akhil would still come to Kottayam, took advantage of the lack of computer knowledge of another staff member and made corrections in statements furnished to the bank and continued transferring money to his mother's account.

The municipality lodged a complaint with the West Police on August 7, 2024, and a case was registered the following day. He was on the run ever since, and the Finance Management and Inspection Wing under the Local Self-Government Department has recommended recovering the defrauded amount from 29 municipal staff members. 

Recently, 89 municipal staff members were transferred out of the municipal office here.  The case was initially investigated by the Kottayam Police before being transferred to the District Crime Branch. It was later handed over to the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau.