A vegetable vendor Kamlesh Gupta has been making rounds of police stations and bank for a month after a sum of Rs68,000 was withdrawn from his account by unknown persons. Sharing his plight, Gupta said, “I have bank account in Sate Bank of India, Race Course, Dehradun. I had kept around Rs81,640 in the account. On January 11, I had withdrawn Rs5,000 from the bank account. At 1.30 pm on February 14, someone had withdrawn around Rs76,000 from the account. Rs52.64 was left in the account. I had approached the bank but the bank officials did not help me.
They advised me to register a case in the police station. I again reached ATM centre and checked the account. I found Rs8,000 was deposited by unidentified persons. I quickly withdrew Rs8,000 from the account. I have thus lost Rs68,000 from my account. I wonder what to do to get back money thus lost. I had neither handed over my ATM card nor disclosed its ATM pin number to anyone else.”
He further said that he had approached lakhibargh police post but its official did not accept his complaint and sent him to Kotwali police station. “No one is ready to listen to my concerns. I am in dire straits with my niece going to get married in April. Being a small vegetable vendor, how I will be arrange the big amount I have pledged to give for the weddingIJ he asked.
This is, however, not the first that unidentified persons had withdrawn money of the ATM cardholders without their knowledge. Another such incident was reported in cyber cell, SSP office a few months back. In such cases, neither police nor bank officials tend to help the complainants. On the contrary, they further demoralise them by asking myriad questions by way of passing the buck to themselves for the loot of their hard-earned money.
Meanwhile, After being informed that the complainant was moving from pillar to post to interest police in cracking the case and returning the money lost this way, STF SSP Dr Sadanand Date and SSP Pushpak Jyoti have directed their subordinates to register the complaint. They also assured the victim that police would do everything to have those responsible booked.