Nagpur: Shekhar Sakhre, a worker with a Sonpapdi factory, and his wife Arti were elated after Rs1.16 lakh, which was siphoned off from her bank account, was credited to her account as a compensation by the bank following an intense liasoning of 29 days by cyber police of the city.
Earlier, the Geetanjali Talkies branch of State Bank of India, where the money was illegally withdrawn from by some tech fraudsters, was dilly-dallying to compensate the couple. The money was part of their savings to build a house.
Shekhar’s wife Arti, who stitches clothes to earn, was left stunned after learning that someone had withdrawn Rs1.16 lakh from her account in March 2020 itself. The couple got to know about the fraud on October 11, 2020. She approached the bank but there was no proper assistance or assurance from the authorities which compelled her to approach the cyber police on November 17, 2020. The police assured Arti to get the compensation amount within 45 days but she got it within 29 days itself.
“It was baffling for me to have lost so much amount through bank when neither I visited the branch nor I operated it online or revealed my OTP. The cyber cell guided me to mount pressure on the bank which credited the money to my account under the pressure of an imminent legal action threat,” she said, adding, “I was even facing problem in procuring the bank statement and details of the transactions through which I had lost the amount.”.
Cyber cell ACP Ashok Bagul, working under the supervision of additional CP of crime branch Sunil Phulari and CP Amitesh Kumar said in the first part of the investigation police concentrated on addressing the administrative hurdles under which the bank concerned was not extending help to a genuine victim customer. “We guided the victim to take up the issue with Lokpal and then also approached RBI. Logistics support was extended to the victim following which the bank agreed to credit the amount to her account to avoid a direct legal confrontation,” said Bagul. Naik police constable Gajanan Rajulwar and API Punit Kulat too had helped the victim to get the amount credited.
Meanwhile, police sources said the illegal transaction has been traced to somewhere in Mumbai. “Soon, a team will leave for Mumbai to arrest the accused,” said the source.