A resident’s alert mind and quick thinking helped him sidestep a cyber con that could have cost him dearly.
Government primary school teacher Rajnish Kumar at Arai village in Aurangabad district, around 130km southwest of Patna, on Wednesday received a call on his cellphone. The caller introduced himself as a private bank representative and told him his ATM card had been deactivated. Once the caller started asking Rajnish details of his card – which banks repeatedly specify their executives never ask for from a customer – the 39-year-old smelt a rat.
He told The Telegraph: “The call came from 9734835785 which, I later found from a number identification app, originated in Bengal. Once the man started asking for my card details, I knew something was wrong. So, I gave him a different card number to which he immediately asked for the correct one. Wise to his act, I told him as much. He disconnected the call after abusing me.”
“I mailed an account of the incident to the offices of the Bengal director-general of police (DGP) and chief minister with hope for some action,” he added.
Rajnish was lucky not to fall in the conman’s trap but not everyone in the state is.
Shahbaz Ahmed, a 23-year-old student living in Patna’s Mahendru area, approached the senior superintendent (SSP)’s office on February 1, complaining that Rs 95,000 had been siphoned off from his account. “I have no idea what to do? The entire money has been used to book several train tickets via IRCTC. My sister’s marriage is in March and I was saving the money for her,” the young student said.
The same day another resident visited the SSP office complaining that her Facebook account had been hacked. Both complainants were advised to go to the economic offences unit (EOU) office – equipped to handle such cases – as SSP Manu Maharaaj was not in his chamber.
Police sources said a lot of residents come to lodge cyber fraud complaints in Patna but officers’ lack of technical knowhow in the matter mean investigations are not carried out in the cases.
Nilesh Kumar, an additional SP-rank officer, who heads the cyber crime cell of Patna police, said: “According to records of the past two months, the police have registered around 20 cases of cyber crime each month. Officers of the police stations concerned are supposed to investigate such cases but if it’s an important matter, the EOU comes in.”
But another officer, requesting anonymity, said: “Actually, many cases are not even lodged. Officers at the police station avoid and try to advise the people against lodging an FIR for which the complainant has to approach senior officers. The local police station officers do not want to touch these cases as investigation into the matter requires a lot of technical knowhow which most of them lack.”
Bihar DGP P.K. Thakur, however, claimed help was on the way.
He said: “The police have embarked on a plan to train selected officers, including constables, in every district to deal with cyber crime. It is difficult to create a cyber crime police station in each district. But the districts will soon get a section of officers with the expertise to solve cyber crime cases.”