A police constable of Sundargarh district has been duped of Rs 1.06 lakh through online fraud after making a transaction through a link he had received while attempting to book a gas cylinder.
On his complaint, the Sadar police station Sundargarh has registered a case and started a probe.
The victim was identified as Rajkumar Patel, a native of Brundabahal village under Sadar police station, who works as a constable in the Government Railway Police at Rourkela.
On December 25, he had gone to his native place. Since his gas cylinder was exhausted, he wanted to refill his gas cylinder on that day and accordingly, he had personally gone to a local gas cylinder booking centre, but that was closed. Since, he had urgency, he wanted to contact a gas dealer and taking the help of Google search engine, he had discovered one customer care number.
Sources said, when Patel contacted that number, a person picking up the phone acknowledged the number of online gas booking. That person reportedly had told Patel that he was sending a link in his phone and he should deposit Rs 5 as the online booking charge.
Patel reportedly followed his instruction and deposited Rs 5 in the given account, from his account of State Bank of India. When he contacted him again to get sure that his deposited amount had been received, that person claimed non receipt of the same and advised him to repeat the process from another account. Patel again followed the instruction and deposited Rs 5 on the given account, from his HDFC bank account, after which the person had confirmed over phone about his booking.
As per the complaint of Patel, he had not got his gas cylinder, but on the contrary, he had received two SMSes from SBI and HDFC bank that an amount of Rs 36,000 and Rs 70,000 respectively had been debited.