A customer of State Bank of India (SBI), Jorhat main branch, was defrauded recently of Rs 26,000 under circumstances which have flummoxed the officials of the bank.
A case has been registered at Jorhat police station in this connection on Monday.
Tarakeswar Kalita, Assistant General Manager, SBI main branch, said that the money was transferred in four installments from Sunday after linking of the Aadhaar card of a person belonging to Andhra Pradesh to the SBI account of Tapan Bordoloi, a resident of Phukan Ali here.
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Kalita said that after a preliminary enquiry as to where the money had got transferred, it was found that the Aadhaar card of the person, residing in Andhra Pradesh, had been linked to Bordoloi’s account in July 2017.
That person had transferred the money through a customer service point through Aadhaar card to the SBI account of Madar Vali Shaik ‘s in the Yerraguntla branch of Andhra Pradesh.
At SBI customer service points in rural areas, money can be transferred by a biometric test through Aadhaar cards.
“We do not know how the Aadhaar of another person could be linked to this account as the maker, the SBI personnel who uploads the Aadhaar details, and the checker, the person authorised to do a check, do not remember the facts. Unless a thorough investigation is done, nothing will be known,” Kalita said.
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He further said that Aadhaar linkage was supposed to be very secure as even if there was a spelling error the linkage failed to take place so it was strange that two different names and father’s names got linked in this case.
Tapan Bordoloi said that as soon as he got a message in his cell phone on Sunday regarding the transfer of Rs 10,000, he immediately rang SBI’s toll free number and blocked his ATM card and changed his net banking code.
Thereafter, another Rs 10,000 was withdrawn and then Rs 1,000. The next day I rushed to the bank wanting to know how my money was being withdrawn and despite the SBI officials monitoring my account another Rs 5,000 was transferred out of it,” Bordoloi fumed.
Kalita said that it could be that the person was an ignorant villager and probably believed that he was transferring money from his own account through the Aadhaar card method. That is why the amount was only Rs 26,000 although there was more money in Bordoloi’s account. Kalita further said that the money would be recovered.
In another incident, a bag containing Rs 6 lakh disappeared from the car of a father-son duo, Hemanta and Jadumoni Hazarika of Choladhara on Wednesday morning.
In the police complaint, Jadumoni had stated that the money had been brought to be deposited in the UBI, Tarajan branch, but police found that Rs 6 lakh had been withdrawn from the bank.
Hemanta Hazarika, who is an octogenarian, was a former employee of ONGC. Police are investigating the case.