The common people in Dehradun, as elsewhere in the State, are apprehensive of net banking transaction- related crimes showing a spurt presently. What is happening is that the people are receiving unwanted phone calls daily from myriad sources, some purportedly from the banks they are customers of.
Those on the other side cajole them into parting with details about the ATM card numbers, passwords and the like, they say. They further say that the callers make them nervous by saying that their cards would be deactivated in case they do not comply.
Police are concerned too, as several such crimes have been reported in the police stations over the past two years. However, the cops sound confounded regarding most of such cases. Such cases are rarely cracked. People are of the view that the bank officials’ negligence is partly responsible for such fraudsters continuing with such crimes with impunity in the district.
STF Uttarakhand SSP P Renuka Devi cautioned the people against responding to unwanted phone calls. “Make no mistake that the bank officials do not ask for ATM passwords. They must not disclose any such information related to bank account details, ATM card and password over phone under any circumstances. They should visit their bank instead,” she said.
Statistics reveals that on September 8, 2015 in Rishikesh, Manjeet Jauhar, a property dealer and resident of Rishikesh, had registered a report in police station, stating that around Rs 12.39 lakh had been withdrawn from his account of an ICICI bank branch through net- banking by unidentified persons.
In another such instance, a vegetable vendor Kamlesh Gupta was robbed of Rs 68,000 by fraudsters who had used net banking to spirit away the money from his bank account at Race Course, Dehradun city.
The case is yet to be cracked despite the cyber cell police station official having collected evidences regarding the identity of the offender.
Observers opine that with such cases of fraudulent withdrawal of money from the bank accounts being on the rise, police department seems foundering in the darkness lacking as they are in the required skill to crack such cases and to bring the offenders to book.