BHOPAL: Families of Indian students stranded in Ukraine following an invasion by Russia have to be wary as there is the likelihood of fraudsters targetting them.
In a case reported on Thursday, a female staffer of a government hospital in Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha district lodged a complaint with the local police stating that a stranger rang her up, introduced himself as calling from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Delhi, and offered his help to bring her daughter, who is doing medicine in Ukraine, home from the war-torn country.
The lab technician with the blood bank at Vidisha District Hospital, Vaishali Wilson, informed the Vidisha City Kotwali police that the caller told her that the government is working for the safe return of all Indian students and asked her to transfer Rs 42,000 into a bank account for urgently arranging the air tickets for bringing her daughter home on a flight bound for India on February 27.
"We promptly transferred Rs 42,000 into the bank account on Wednesday. But neither I nor my daughter received any air ticket from Ukraine to India,” Vaishali Wilson said.
“After repeated phone calls, the caller repaid Rs 5,000. He also assured to return the entire sum soon. But we don’t believe in him. Hence we lodged a police complaint,” she pointed out.
Importantly, the two cell phone numbers from which the government hospital staffer received the calls on Wednesday are displayed as "Central Government of India" and "Prince Ji PMO CVC" on the Truecaller app.
Vidisha City Kotwali inspector in charge Ashutosh Singh Rajput said, “we’ve launched a probe into the matter. We've also approached the bank to which the money was transferred."
Earlier, when she rang up the Chief Minister’s Helpline in MP seeking the CM's intervention to help bring her daughter back from Ukraine, the staff who attended the call asked her to lodge a complaint with the police in Ukraine.