Bhargavi Chirmule: mother falls victim to cyber fraud over a gas bill; police trace the culprit, thousands of rupees recovered.

Incidents of cyber fraud are on the rise. In recent years, these fraudsters have swindled ordinary people out of lakhs of rupees. Observing the increasing frequency of these crimes, the government has also gone on alert and launched various campaigns and awareness drives. However, these criminals are so adept at their craft that they leave their victims no time to distinguish between what is real and what is a scam. Moreover, their primary targets are often the elderly.

Older people often do not understand much about social media; consequently, they tend to follow whatever the person on the other end tells them to do, leading to money disappearing from their accounts.

A similar incident recently happened to actress Bhargavi Chirmule. About a year ago, her mother had fallen victim to this kind of fraud. A video of Bhargavi at the police station has recently surfaced, in which she has shared details about the incident. She explained that, some time ago, her mother received a call from MNGL Gas regarding an outstanding gas bill. The caller asked her to make a video call and provided various instructions. Then the call disconnected, and before we could realize what was happening, money was deducted from her account. Around that time, we heard about numerous incidents where people had been defrauded through calls regarding MNGL piped gas. This had happened to several artists as well, who had openly shared their experiences on social media. My mother was deeply shocked by this incident.

Bhargavi further mentioned that we were all frightened; I had come to Pune for work, and subsequently, I filed a complaint with the cyber police. I really appreciated the fact that they registered our complaint without requiring us to visit any location in person. I provided my mother's age and the complaint number, and was simply told to visit the nearest police station and quote that number. We did go to the police station and provide the number, but that was seven or eight months ago; in the intervening time, we had actually forgotten about the matter.

However, just two or three days ago, we received a call from the police station informing us that the money had been recovered. At first, I didn't believe it, as I suspected it might be another form of cyber fraud. After hanging up, I received a follow-up call instructing me to bring my mother—along with certain documents—to the station. That was when I began to have doubts about the authenticity of the call, so I discussed the matter with a friend.

When I called that number back to verify, they confirmed that the call had indeed come from the police station and asked me to come and collect my money. I was truly delighted to hear this; it really proves that the police are our friends. On the day I went to collect the money, there were about 20 to 25 other people there, just like me, to reclaim the money they had lost. The Maharashtra Police deserve immense praise for this.
What measures would you suggest to protect elderly people from cyber fraud?

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