BENGALURU: Writing passwords of debit cards and keeping in ones purse is common, especially among senior citizens. But for this guest of Indian Roads Congress (IRC), this turned out to be costly. As costly as `1 lakh.Dhananjay Ganapathi Bankar, a native of Pune in Maharashtra, had come to Bengaluru to attend the 78th Indian Roads Congress on November 3. On returning to his hotel room, he saw messages on his phone informing him that `1.1 lakh had been withdrawn through ATMs from three of his bank accounts. This is when he realised that his wallet had been stolen from his trouser pocket. The wallet had three debit cards - two of State Bank of India and the third of Bank of Maharashtra.
For the thief who stole his wallet, it was a cakewalk. Bankar had written the pin numbers of these ATM cards and left them in the same wallet. He tried to block his debit cards but it was already too late. Besides, he also left copies of his PAN card, Aadhaar card and `1,400 in cash in the wallet.
“I hail from Maharashtra. The theft must have taken place around 3pm but I got to know about it late. I am 68 years old. Since I could not memorise my passwords, I wrote them down. It is the first time such an incident has happened in my life,” Bankar said. He is a retired superintendent engineer of PWD, Maharashtra.
High Grounds police have registered a case. Police said they are checking the ATMs where the cash was withdrawn in order to take the video footage from the kiosk.