In my primetime 9 pm show 'Aaj Ki Baat' on Thursday, we showed how cyber criminals tried to trap an elderly lady, Usha Shukla, in Lucknow's Vikas Nagar by posing as CBI officers and asked her to transfer her Rs 1.5 crore of her hard-earned savings in the form of fixed deposits to a fake account. It was a timely intervention by the Punjab National Bank local staff and manager that police entered the scene and the lady was saved from being scammed. The lady got a video call from an unknown number on December 11. In the video, the gangsters posed as CBI officers and told the lady that her phone was used by her son for transferring money to terrorists linked to the Pahalgam attack.
Usha Shukla was terrified. She told India TV reporter Ruchi Kumar that the caller and two others, including a woman, were in police uniform. The fraudsters told Usha Shukla that if she wanted to save herself from being arrested, she must remain under 'digital arrest', shall not talk about this to anybody, shall not move out of the house and disallow her maid to come. Usha Shukla stays alone in her apartment. Her children work in other cities. She did not even tell her son about this. The thugs took bank account details from the lady and told her to transfer her fixed deposit money to an account they gave her. They promised that the money would be returned within two or three days, once the case is closed.
The lady was instructed to ring up the number daily to say ‘good morning’, send message every hour, and say ‘good night’ before going to sleep. She was asked not to switch off her phone when she is asleep. Usha Shukla went to the Vikas Nagar branch of Punjab National Bank and told the staff that she wanted to withdraw all the money kept in fixed deposits. The employee Ankita tried to convince Usha not to do this, but the lady was adamant. Ankita then told the branch manager Shravan Rathore. He spoke to the old lady and tried to deflect her attention by telling her that the account to which the money is to be transferred was incorrect.
When Usha went outside to speak to the fraudsters on the phone, a bank employee was sent to hear her conversations. The bank manager then decided to call the police. It was only then that the cat came out of the bag, the gang members knew their game was up and they disconnected the call. More than Rs 3,000 crore had been scammed from people in the name of ‘digital arrest’. 17,718 cases of digital arrest were registered in the first two months of 2025. When these facts were revealed to Chief Justice of India Justice Surya Kant, he was astonished at the scale of such crimes.
Cyber criminals recreate police stations and even courtrooms to fool innocent people. They use fake documents and most of them operate outside India. Once the money is transferred through ‘mule accounts’, no traces remain about the end users. For the police, it is difficult to recover the money that has been scammed.
The biggest weapon against digital arrest is awareness. Let me repeat this again. There is no such thing called as digital arrest. If anybody threatens digital arrest, contact the nearest police station and take help from your friends before falling into any trap. The government has set up a helpline for reporting cyber crimes. The helpline number is 1930. If any such cyber fraud happens, dial 1930. The sooner you contact the police, the greater is the possibility of nabbing the fraudsters. In the Lucknow case, if the bank officer had not displayed timely caution, another elderly citizen could have been robbed.
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India's Number One and most followed Super Prime Time News Show 'Aaj Ki Baat- Rajat Sharma Ke Saath' was launched just before the 2014 General Elections. Since its inception, the show has redefined India's super-prime time and is numerically far ahead of its contemporaries. Aaj Ki Baat: Monday to Friday, 9:00 pm.
