GUWAHATI: A dentist from Dibrugarh District in Assam fell prey to cyber fraud and lost Rs 1.5 lakh from her bank account. An unknown person reached out to dental surgeon, Shilpika Chutia of Dibrugarh, posing as an Army officer seeking appointments for his soldiers.
Dressed in army uniform, the person contacted her over a video call, and asked to book check-up slots at her clinic in Dibrugarh's Boiragimoth for 35 subordinates.
The impersonator introduced himself as an officer from the Mohanbari Army Camp and insisted on making advance payment.
According to media reports, Dr Shilpika agreed following repeated requests and clicked on the links shared to her phone from the scammer, the moment she clicked on the links to initiate the advance payment transaction, Rs 1.5 lakh was debited from her account in four instalments within a minute.
Initially, Rs 50,000 was deducted from her account. And then three more transactions followed, scamming her off Rs 40,000, Rs 50,000 and Rs 10,000, respectively; adding up to a whopping Rs 1.5 lakh. The incident came to light when the victim filed an FIR with the Dibrugarh Police on Friday, September 2.
Assam is one of the five states that constitutes over 70 percent of the cybercrime cases reported in India. The other 4 states being Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra, as per the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) ‘Crime In India 2021’ report.
The rate of cybercrime was the second highest in Assam (13.8), with Telangana (27), leading the tally. 4,846 cases relating to cybercrime were registered in Assam during 2021.
