E-Paper
Ludhiana: 67-year-old woman loses over ₹2 lakh in ATM fraud
The accused, posing as a helpful bystander, guided the complainant through the transaction but allegedly swapped the debit card with a fake one during the process
A fraudster posing as a good samaritan duped a 67-year-old woman of ₹2.05 lakh by swapping her debit card at an ATM kiosk at Bahadurke Road. The woman is reportedly a relative of Ludhiana north MLA Madan Lal Bagga, who came to the city from Zirakpur to visit her relatives.
The Salem Tabri police lodged an FIR against an unidentified accused.
The complainant, Chanchal Gulati, a resident of Zirakpur of Mohali, stated that she visited an ATM of Punjab National Bank near Grain Market at Bahadurke Road on April 6 to withdraw cash from her savings account using her debit card.
According to the complaint, she was facing difficulty while operating the ATM when a man present at the kiosk offered assistance.
The accused, posing as a helpful bystander, guided her through the transaction but allegedly swapped the debit card with a fake one during the process.
The woman later discovered the fraud when she received transaction alerts on her phone on April 10, indicating that ₹2.05 lakh had been withdrawn from her account at another ATM. Following this, she immediately filed a complaint.
Investigating officer sub-inspector Harmesh Lal said that a case has been registered under Sections 318(4) (cheating) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. He added that the woman filed a complaint to police on April 10. The police sought CCTV footage from the bank to identify and trace the accused.
It is the second such incident reported in the past seven days. On April 3, the division number 3 police registered a case against an unidentified accused for allegedly cheating a 59-year-old man of ₹1.5 lakh by swapping his debit card at an ATM kiosk.
