Three people have been arrested by the Pune police for stealing more than Rs 60, 000 from the bank account of Amol Palekar, a Bollywood actor and director.

The cyber cell of the Pune police had been investigating in this matter since the time the actor had filed a report with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Pune police.

In December 2007, the actor had received a bank statement mentioning online booking of flight tickets from Mumbai to Bangalore and Mumbai to Goa amounting to Rs 60,258 in November 2007. The actor was shocked to see such an amount debited to his account and therefore he approached the police.

The three people named Hassan Iqbal Shaikh, Ross and Naznine Pereira are suspected by the police for misappropriating the actor's account. Two laptops, four mobile phones, data card, diary containing several credit card numbers and cash worth Rs 53,700 were recovered from them, said Krantikumar Patil, Assistant police inspector.

Interrogation of the matter has revealed that Hassan Iqbal Shaikh has earlier been held for misappropriating Rs 74,000 from the account of Harishbhai Chandra of Rajkot. Even in that case the accused had been booking online air tickets, reported Deputy Commissioner of police Rajendra Dahale.

The suspects have still been under the police custody for further investigation on the matter.