Mumbai: A 77-year-old retired Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) doctor was allegedly cheated of ₹6.71 lakh by cyber fraudsters who trapped him on the pretext of rectifying a discrepancy in his Special Intensive Revision (SIR) form.
According to the FIR, Dr Pratap Bongirwar from Mankhurd received an SMS on July 29. The message included the phone number of a fake poll officer. When Dr Bongirwar contacted the fraudster, the latter told him there was a discrepancy in his SIR application and offered to resolve it through an e-verification process. The caller then sent a link to a bogus voter verification website. Subsequently, a message popped up on the website asking Dr Bongirwar to pay ₹5 as a verification charge. After complying, his phone was flooded with onetime passwords, arousing his suspicion. He later found that ₹6,71,006 had been siphoned off from his bank account.
