After court intervention, police register FIR in Rs 10L online fraud case

Following the intervention of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the cybercrime police station of the city police commissionerate finally registered an FIR in connection with an online fraud case in which a retired government employee was duped by swindlers of Rs 10 lakh on the pretext of investment.

The complainant, identified as Maninder Singh, a resident of the New Amritsar area, had submitted a complaint on May 20 while a case was registered yesterday. The High Court also ordered the Police Commissioner (CP) to file a reply through a personal affidavit while explaining the delay in registering a case on or before — September 9 — the next date of hearing. In case of no reply, the Police Commissioner was asked to be personally present in the court, the order read.

In his complaint to the Director General Punjab Police (DGP) with copies to Police Commissioner, Amritsar, and the Cyber Cell, Maninder stated that he retired in the year 2023 after which his retirement funds were released. The complainant said earlier, he invested in stock market through Zerodha. Later, he withdrew his investment from Zerodha after coming in contact with another investment group Bishnu Shah Stock. Maninder said after long discussion with the new group, he invested in Karma Capital. After opening a demat account with Karma Capital the complainant initially invested around Rs 14.50 lakh out of which he withdrew Rs 4.5 lakh on different occasions.

The complainant came to know about fraud in March. He said his account was showing a balance of Rs 35 lakh (including investment and profit). He requested Karma Capital to let him withdraw funds from his account, but the firm demanded Rs 4.10 lakh as outstanding tax on income from investments. The complainant asked the firm to deduct tax from his demat account, but the latter did not respond. The complainant said when contacted Karma Capital through official page on the Internet, the firm informed him that some persons identified themselves as Bishnu, Dinesh and Gayatri, who had contacted him, were committing fraud with investors by impersonating as officials of Karma Capital. The information was already posted on their website, the firm told complainant.

Maninder said in April when he tried to withdraw some amount due to personal need, the bank informed him that his demat account was closed. The police have registered an FIR under Section 318 of the BNS and Section 66 (D) of the Information Technology Act against the suspects.