The Ludhiana police has arrested four people for allegedly stealing money from the bank accounts of people after swapping their debit cards with fake ones.
The police recovered 31 debit cards, around Rs 15,500 in cash, a bike, and some sharp edged weapons from the arrested accused.
The police identified the arrested accused as Rohit of Parbhat Nagar, Kapil Bakhshi of Jain Colony, Shubham of Hargobind Nagar, and Prince Sharma of Hargobind Nagar. ASI Gurdial Singh of Tibba police station said that on May 15, the police had lodged an FIR on the basis of a complaint received from one Raj Kumar, a resident of Karamsar Colony. In his complaint, Kumar had claimed that Rs 16,000 had been stolen from his bank account using his debit card.
Raj Kumar told police that he had gone to to the Union Bank ATM in Subhash Nagar on May 15. There he faced a problem in withdrawing cash and a man — one of the accused — who was already present there, offered his help. The accused while pretending to help Kumar swapped his debit card with a fake one and fled with his aide on a bike. Kumar, however, managed to note the registration number of the bike. Later, the miscreants withdrew Rs 16,000 from Kumar’s bank account using his debit card.
The ASI added that the police filed an FIR, launched a probe and traced and arrested the accused by tracking the registration number of the vehicle.
An FIR under sections 420, 379-B and 34 of the IPC has been registered against the accused at Tibba police station.