Woman cheated of ₹4 lakh on pretext of hospital registration

Unidentified suspects were booked for allegedly cheating a 70-year-old woman of ₹3

Unidentified suspects were booked for allegedly cheating a 70-year-old woman of ₹3.97 lakh on the pretext of getting her registration done with a private hospital in Sector 38 for treatment, Gurugram police said on Sunday.

Woman cheated of ₹4 lakh on pretext of hospital registration

Police said the victim, identified as Santosh Handu, had come to Gurugram from Jammu and was staying with her son Atul Kumar at Sector 15.

Investigators said the woman had tried to get an appointment at the hospital on April 14, when she was allegedly duped.

Police said the victim called on a fake number that she sourced from the internet and the suspect, who is yet to be traced, asked her to transfer ₹10 via UPI.

“Handu transferred the money, and the suspect was also successful in extracting other account-related details from her after which a total of ₹3.97 lakh was debited from her bank account,” a police officer said.

Meanwhile, the woman’s son alleged that his mother had not received any SMS alert but officials of the Hari Market branch of the State Bank of India (SBI) in Jammu called them and quizzed about the transactions.

“They alerted that three transactions of about ₹1 lakh each were made via UPI till April 17. They wanted to know if my mother had done them, but she had not made these hefty transactions. With the help of bank officials, we got the UPI deactivated from my mother’s account,” he said, adding his mother is used to making UPI transactions on her own.

On the woman’s complaint, an FIR was registered against unidentified suspects under Section 419 (cheating by personation) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at the Cyber Crime (west) police station on Friday, police said.

Subhash Boken, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said an investigation is underway to trace the suspect. “We are gathering details of the ATMs from where the money was withdrawn and will look for the CCTV footage,” he added.