Four held in Bihar for duping Rajasthan IAS officer of ₹2.7 L

A joint team of Rajasthan and Bihar police on Friday busted a gang of telecallers who had allegedly duped a senior Rajasthan cadre IAS officer of ₹2.73 lakh.

Deputy commissioner of police (crime branch), Jaipur, Vikash Pathak said four members of the gang were arrested during a raid at Rajgir in Bihar’s Nalanda district, about 62km south of Patna.

“Soon after Rajasthan additional chief secretary JC Mohanty lodged the complaint, we began investigating the case. The mobile phones from which the calls were made to Mohanty were put under surveillance and the call details traced the location of the gangsters to Bihar from where more than 5000 calls had been made to people of Rajasthan,” Pathak told HT from Jaipur.

Nalanda superintendent of police Kumar Ashish told HT that Mohanty had on April 3 lodged an FIR at Ashok Nagar police station in Jaipur against unknown persons for allegedly duping him of ₹2.73 lakh after extracting his debit card details.

“Mohanty got the first call on March 23 and the last call on April 1. The caller introduced himself as an officer of State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ) said Mohanty’s existing card would be blocked and he would be issued a new card. He was asked to share the card and CVV numbers. Believing it to be a genuine call, Mohanty shared the details. He did not initially realise that his money was being siphoned off. The money was deducted in instalments to different accounts using mobile wallets such as Paytm,” Ashish said. Those arrested have been identified as Deepak Chourasia, his brother Bikash Kumar Chourasia (both from Nawada in Bihar), Ram Nandan Prasad (Nalanda) and Alok Kumar (East Singhbhum in Jharkhand), Ashish said.

Police had recovered 14 cell phones, 56 SIM cards, six debit cards, three chequebooks, two PAN cards, a driving licence and ₹2.22 lakh in cash from them, he added.