Mangaluru: Woman duped of Rs 3.09 cr in 'digital arrest' scam
Mangaluru, Aug 10 (PTI): A retired woman here lost Rs 3.09 crore to cybercriminals in a ‘digital arrest’ scam, police said on Sunday.
The victim, identified as Leni Prabhu, filed a complaint with the Cyber Economic and Narcotics (CEN) police station after receiving a missed call on January 15 from an unknown number. When she returned the call, a woman posing as a General Post Office official told her that a parcel sent in her name to China had been intercepted, containing 150 grams of MDMA.
The caller "threatened that the offence carried a prison sentence of over 75 years."
Claiming she could help obtain a no-objection certificate, the fraudster coerced Prabhu into surrendering 93 percent of her pension.
Under duress, Prabhu first transferred Rs 55 lakh via RTGS. Between January 17 and July 4, she made multiple transactions totaling Rs 3.09 crore to accounts allegedly provided by the suspects.
The scam was uncovered when the victim stopped receiving responses from the fraudsters.
In a 'digital arrest' scam, fraudsters allegedly impersonate law enforcement officials to deceive and intimidate victims by falsely accusing them of illegal activities. They then pressure victims into paying money to avoid arrest. The perpetrators often pose as CBI agents, income tax officers, or customs officials and contact victims through phone calls.
A case has been registered, and investigators are working to trace the perpetrators and recover the stolen funds.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
