‘Hung ATM’ disgorges Rs 20,000; cops hunt for two

Looking to withdraw Rs 400 from an ATM in South Delhi’s Kamla Cinema area,Debasish Sahu inserted his card and waited for the machine to ask for his PIN. The machine hung,instead. He pressed the ‘clear’ and ‘cancel’ buttons a couple of times,but the machine did not budge. Relieved that he had got his card back,the architect went to another ATM and withdraw the money.

Around two hours later,he received an SMS that Rs 20,000 had been debited from his bank account,said Sahu. With this and three other similar complaints pouring in one after the other a few days ago,police have started investigations into the case. Among the other complainants are Hira Bahadur,a Lance Naik in the Army,Triloki Singh Yadav,who is posted with the CISF,and Mohan Lal Bhardwaj,a security officer with a private firm.

In his complaint,Bhardwaj said: “After checking my account balance,which was Rs 66,656,I tried to cancel my transaction several times,but it did not work. I went to another machine where I found that Rs 40,000 had been withdrawn from my account from the same ATM I had tried earlier.”

Yadav and Hira Bahadur told the police that they noticed three men in the area when they were withdrawing money.

A senior police officer said a case of cheating had been registered and investigations were under way. “We are analysing the CCTV footage,” he said.

Sources,meanwhile,said one of the three men had been arrested and the police were interrogating him to ascertain the modus operandi used by them to dupe ATM users.